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Good lord I am the least handy person ever. So today I awoke to a swimming pool in my basement, after having a few trickles here and there that I thought were from the washing machine. It looks like the actual issue is the hot water heater, as I noticed a steady stream coming from the bottom. I'd put it at 20+ years old, since I've been here 13 years and it definitely wasn't new. I'm probably not going to try and replace it myself, as, well, not handy. Problem I'm running into is this - I know I need to drain the tank prior to getting it replaced, and I'm pretty sure I can handle that part. So I went to turn the water off here  And the valve was not turning. A wrench later, I managed to get it to turn...but it just keeps turning, and when I went to tighten it back up it just kept spinning. So that's going to be problem #1 because I don't know that it actually turned off the water. I turned off all the water in the house, and am getting ready to drain it, I assume this dusty bastard is the drain valve? Hook a hose up, turn the knob and let it drain? There's problem #2 - my basement doesn't have a ground level drain, it all goes up through the sink, so I'm thinking gravity isn't going to be a friend here. Link to album of other dirty nasty pictures because my basement is a den of evil here. Anything else I should be concerned with? Finally - getting a new one, thoughts on tankless vs a traditional? Money isn't a huge factor, I'm a single guy living in a small house so I'm thinking the extra $$$ for a tankless might be a wise investment.
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Dec 6, 2017 17:33
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Medullah posted:Good lord I am the least handy person ever. That's a gate valve. They're known for being lovely and mostly a suggestion for shutting off all the way. Ask to get that replaced with a ball valve when getting your new heater. For now, just leave the heater full, there's nothing you can do about it. Do you have a walk out basement? You can attach a garden hose to the drain valve. Do that and run the hose outside. kid sinister fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Dec 6, 2017 |
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Dec 6, 2017 18:24
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For what it's worth, I love my tankless. It takes a few seconds longer to get hot water out of the tap because the heater needs to fire up, but once you get hot water you never run out. You're also not paying to keep a tank of water warm at all times, even when there is no chance of demand like when you're at work. A tankless will most likely require changes to your venting though. To heat the water quickly they use a big burning flame, which requires a large (4" PVC in my case) outside air intake and exhaust pipe. e: Gas usage is next to nothing. My furnace uses more keeping the house warm in the winter. In the summer I'm basically paying the minimum service charge for the gas hookup even with my water heater getting used. PremiumSupport fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Dec 6, 2017 |
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Dec 6, 2017 21:18
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PremiumSupport posted:A tankless will most likely require changes to your venting though. To heat the water quickly they use a big burning flame, which requires a large (4" PVC in my case) outside air intake and exhaust pipe. Yeah I talked to a few places today to get quotes and they all universally said going tankless would require additional work with my Hobbit house. Thanks guys.
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Dec 6, 2017 23:37
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Medullah posted:Yeah I talked to a few places today to get quotes and they all universally said going tankless would require additional work with my Hobbit house. If you're not replacing this yourself, draining falls firmly in the "someone elses problem" category". I seem to recall them using a pump when mine was replaced. Now that you've experienced the fun of gate vales, you should check if those valves around your water meter actually shut the water off to the house or not. If not, swapping at least one of them for a gate valve when you get the water heater replaced is probably a good idea (if they don't work, they'll end up shutting off water from the street anyway, so probably not a ton of extra work). I'm finally free of gate valves in my house. Even went with ball valves for the outdoor spigots.
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Dec 7, 2017 02:02
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devicenull posted:Now that you've experienced the fun of gate vales, you should check if those valves around your water meter actually shut the water off to the house or not. If not, swapping at least one of them for a ball valve when you get the water heater replaced is probably a good idea FTFY Gate valves suck. The order of quality for shut off valves is gate < globe < ball.
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Dec 8, 2017 04:32
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kid sinister posted:FTFY Unless its an OSY valve. Technically a gate valve and they work great.
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Dec 8, 2017 15:37
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This may seem like a dumb question with an obvious answer, but I have little to no experience with this. Our bathtub's drain stopper didn't work; it was one of those things that had a lever on the overflow cover. I decided to replace the overflow cover with a regular one and remove the plunger apparatus. That worked fine; new overflow plate installed. The problem is with removing the old drain so that I can install a new one with a "step on it" style drain stopper. It's one of those with a replaceable cartridge; you just push on it to close the drain, and step on it again to open it. Anyway, I can't unscrew the existing drain to install the new one (the old one has a crossbar at the top with a whole in the center that the drain plate screwed in). I've tried using quite a lot of force; I inserted pliers into it and used a lever (hammer handle once, a larger pair of pliers another time), but it wouldn't budge. I saw something about using WD40 so I used that last night. I'll try again tonight to see if that helped. Is there any advice someone can offer? I have one of those "drain keys" that works great, but I can't use it in this case because the existing crossbar on the drain is in the way. Thanks!!
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Dec 14, 2017 16:52
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Vitalis Jackson posted:This may seem like a dumb question with an obvious answer, but I have little to no experience with this. Our bathtub's drain stopper didn't work; it was one of those things that had a lever on the overflow cover. I decided to replace the overflow cover with a regular one and remove the plunger apparatus. That worked fine; new overflow plate installed. Actually, nevermind. The shoe under the drain was brass and was married to a short section of copper drain pipe, perhaps 8" in length. I had resorted to using a hacksaw on the flange in the tub to create a notch in the edge; I then tried using a chisel to force the flange to begin unscrewing. The hacksaw/chisel technique was effective up to a point; although the flange finally began to budge and moved in a counterclockwise fashion, in fact the entire shoe moved and rotated, separating from the drain pipe. In the end, I chiseled/pried away the flange's lip and dropped the shoe from underneath the tub with the flange still attached. There was no unscrewing the flange--it appeared to be brass as well. I ended up replacing the shoe/drainpipe/flange assembly in it's entirety. The new problem is that apparently all the "toe touch" drain stoppers sold at Menards are made for 1-1/2" flanges. Mine is less than that, perhaps 1-3/8". I bought the new flange/show assembly at Ace, so perhaps they have a toe touch stopper that fits it. The lack of standardization in plumbing and hardware is maddening.
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Dec 15, 2017 17:01
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I have no words. Just lol... 
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Dec 15, 2017 17:22
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BubbaGrace posted:I have no words. Just lol... 
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Dec 15, 2017 18:22
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BubbaGrace posted:I have no words. Just lol... Let's see what's on the truck dot jaypeg.
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Dec 16, 2017 00:23
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That's an expansion chamber and you'll find it's very necessary for your two stroke toilet to idle properly.
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Dec 16, 2017 02:10
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BubbaGrace posted:I have no words. Just lol... Jesus Christ. Sloppy primer as well! e: gonna take a whack at this. From left to right its 2" pipe, 2x3 bushing,3x4 bushing into a no hub band, 4" pipe into a hub drain down to 3", 3x2 bushing, 2" pipe into a 90 with a no hub band to end it off. Pookum fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Dec 17, 2017 |
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Dec 17, 2017 00:52
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GWBBQ posted:That's an expansion chamber and you'll find it's very necessary for your two stroke toilet to idle properly. Okay, thanks. Now I'm subscribed to the plumbing thread.
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Dec 17, 2017 04:31
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Is the short story “Two‐Stroke Toilets” known widely enough that this is a reference to that or does that connection exist only in my head?
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Dec 17, 2017 05:25
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My toilet always needs a double flush. It seems like it will work, everything goes down, but then it backwashes -- even a single square of toilet paper will get shredded and come back. It's never actually clogged, so I don't want to gently caress that up, but it would be nice to end the backwash deal. Because nothing can be straightforward in my apartment, this is a tankless toilet, so all the advice about messing with the tank is a nonstarter. Also, I don't know if this matters, but it's weird: the drain exits the bowl in the front, not the back.
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Dec 17, 2017 23:01
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i like nice words
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Not sure if this is really a plumbing issue or not, but there's a weird situation with my vents: I'm pretty sure they're clogged with lots and lots of birds or some other critters, and the result is that one of my upstairs bathrooms reeks of sewer gas because of the clog. I originally thought the toilet was unseated or the ring was broken, so we replaced it and the smell is still there. We also tried flooding up the peat traps, also to no avail with the smell, although that caused a pretty awesome backflow which I discovered the next morning. At any time of the day, we can usually hear something crawling or flapping around in the walls. The smell is constant, but as long as I keep the door to that bathroom closed, we don't smell it in other places in the house, although there is a faint odor in the room directly under it on the first level. The plumber I called said that there's no way he's going to try to get his equipment on the roof of a two story house, so what's the solution? I think there's a downstairs vent where the birds or whatever might have originally entered. Is it even possible to suction something out if it's so far in that we can hear it flapping around in both levels of the house?
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Dec 17, 2017 23:54
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IT BURNS posted:Not sure if this is really a plumbing issue or not, but there's a weird situation with my vents: I'm pretty sure they're clogged with lots and lots of birds or some other critters, and the result is that one of my upstairs bathrooms reeks of sewer gas because of the clog. I originally thought the toilet was unseated or the ring was broken, so we replaced it and the smell is still there. We also tried flooding up the peat traps, also to no avail with the smell, although that caused a pretty awesome backflow which I discovered the next morning. At any time of the day, we can usually hear something crawling or flapping around in the walls. The smell is constant, but as long as I keep the door to that bathroom closed, we don't smell it in other places in the house, although there is a faint odor in the room directly under it on the first level. The traps should be wet anyway unless you have some floor drain you never use (which would be super weird). It doesn't matter if the vent is clogged as far as far as smell goes if the traps are wet. It sounds like you have carrion in your walls. Or something leaking and rotting in the walls. Just how bad is your roof/eaves/etc and how much have you looked around in the attic and anywhere you can get to around this area?
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Dec 18, 2017 00:09
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IT BURNS posted:Not sure if this is really a plumbing issue or not, but there's a weird situation with my vents: I'm pretty sure they're clogged with lots and lots of birds or some other critters, and the result is that one of my upstairs bathrooms reeks of sewer gas because of the clog. I originally thought the toilet was unseated or the ring was broken, so we replaced it and the smell is still there. We also tried flooding up the peat traps, also to no avail with the smell, although that caused a pretty awesome backflow which I discovered the next morning. At any time of the day, we can usually hear something crawling or flapping around in the walls. The smell is constant, but as long as I keep the door to that bathroom closed, we don't smell it in other places in the house, although there is a faint odor in the room directly under it on the first level. Perhaps you should clean the sink drain. Fill it half full of water, close off the overflow with a damp washcloth or something, and then hit it with a plunger. The debris and disgusting gunk that is dislodged is truly joyous. It's possible that's what you're smelling. Plunge that baby! Vitalis Jackson fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Dec 18, 2017 |
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Dec 18, 2017 04:43
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I live in a single-level house rental, and did something similar, maybe. We have two bathrooms, each with a tub and shower. Since we moved in, the drains on the tubs have been super slow, especially on the master tub (closest to the street), but the landlord sends over his "friend" who is a plumber, and he always says it's just fine. Liquid plumbr didn't do much to help, either. gently caress that. So, I filled every sink in the house full to the top, plugged the overflows, filled the tubs, and filled the shower stall floor/tub all full with water. I used a bit of bar soap remnants (didn't have any clay/putty on hand) to plug the tub vents/overflows, too. I had the kids in the kitchen, and the (ex)-GF in one bathroom and me in the other, each with a plunger on the tub drains. On the count of three, we pulled the drains on all of the sinks and flushed the toilets at approx the same time, and then plunged the tub drains in unison. After a few plunges there was a small rumble, like flushing a really big "load," and the problem tub drained faster than it ever had. The house was built in 2002 out of "builder-grade" materials, so it has a neat design but is creaky and cheap as gently caress. I hope we didn't break any plumbing, but the slow drain problem has been fixed for six months and there's no sewage-smelling puddle in the yard so I think we're good.
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Dec 18, 2017 04:52
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This brought tears to my eyes. Beautiful, simply beautiful! LOVE, VITALIS
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Dec 18, 2017 05:09
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Vitalis Jackson posted:This brought tears to my eyes. Beautiful, simply beautiful!
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Dec 18, 2017 18:26
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Anne Whateley posted:My toilet always needs a double flush. It seems like it will work, everything goes down, but then it backwashes -- even a single square of toilet paper will get shredded and come back. It's never actually clogged, so I don't want to gently caress that up, but it would be nice to end the backwash deal. If it's an apartment, talk to your landlord. Your problem is the same as on a tanked toilet though: you're not using enough water per flush to clear the bowl and need to increase that amount. Also, I don't know what you mean by the drain being in the front. Toilets drain either through the floor or through the wall. If it drains through the front, then you're sitting on it the wrong way. fake edit: you could use a wire coat hanger and make sure that the jet in the bottom and all the outlets on the underside of the rim are all clear.
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Dec 18, 2017 19:12
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My super only works exactly when I'm at work, so when stuff is this minor, I'd rather deal with it myself than take a day off work (I can't work from home). I'm also trying to get more handy, seems like good life skills.kid sinister posted:Also, I don't know what you mean by the drain being in the front. Toilets drain either through the floor or through the wall. If it drains through the front, then you're sitting on it the wrong way.  Mine is somehow backwards. Usually they drain to the back of the bowl, but mine visibly drains to the front of the bowl and as far as I can tell has all that other stuff in the front of the bowl, away from the wall. I don't know if this is a thing or what it's called. The brand is Gerber and it's 1.6gpf so probably 1990s or later? quote:fake edit: you could use a wire coat hanger and make sure that the jet in the bottom and all the outlets on the underside of the rim are all clear.
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Dec 18, 2017 20:09
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We recently bought a house which was built in 1977. It is a split level. The two upstairs toilets do not flush very well- there is always a bit of toilet paper or something that floats back up and requires a second flush. I noticed the previous owner had adjusted the float so that the tank was not filling up to the normal level so I fixed that. I also noticed that he had turned the shutoff valve about 60% closed which I corrected. This made the flushing better but still not at the level I would consider normal. I did a vinegar soak in the tank of one of the toilets and that didn’t help much. Is this just going to be an “it’s an old toilet” thing? The date stamps in the tank on both toilets is 1977 so They look to be original to the house.
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Dec 19, 2017 01:56
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Pookum posted:Jesus Christ. Sloppy primer as well! Close. It's 2" Pipe > 2x4" Bushing > 4" Fernco (with one end over the bushing lmao) > 4x3" Reducer coupling > 3" x 1 1/2" bushing > 1 1/2" pipe > 1 1/2" 90 > 1 1/2" Fernco cap. This is totally a gently caress it's 5 pm and we need to cap a 2" line and all we have is a 1 1/2" Fernco cap, what do we do? poo poo we don't have a 2 x 1 1/2 reducer/bushing either! Well what the hell do we have!?! For one there is no doubt in my mind this was not done by a licensed plumber. Secondly I am still not sure why the 90 was throw into the mix when they could have just capped the pipe before it. When I first seen this in the ceiling it hosed me mentally to the point where I started questioning myself and what I was seeing. I even sent my boss a picture and then called him to ask if I was missing something here. It's so hacked up that for a second there all I could do is try to figure out if there was a legit reason for this even though I knew there wasn't lol. BubbaGrace fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Dec 19, 2017 |
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Dec 19, 2017 03:01
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Rubiks Pubes posted:We recently bought a house which was built in 1977. It is a split level. The two upstairs toilets do not flush very well- there is always a bit of toilet paper or something that floats back up and requires a second flush. I noticed the previous owner had adjusted the float so that the tank was not filling up to the normal level so I fixed that. I also noticed that he had turned the shutoff valve about 60% closed which I corrected. This made the flushing better but still not at the level I would consider normal. I did a vinegar soak in the tank of one of the toilets and that didn’t help much. Is this just going to be an “it’s an old toilet” thing? The date stamps in the tank on both toilets is 1977 so They look to be original to the house. New toilets are way better then ones from the 70s. I'd suggest replacing them.
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Dec 19, 2017 14:48
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I dunno, I had a 5 gallon flusher that you could lose a toddler in
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Dec 19, 2017 21:44
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DustyNuts posted:Today, I had an HVAC guy come by from the company that replaced my old Apollo heater and A/C to do a quick check to make sure my heating was working properly, and he was pretty appalled by the water heater situation. The plumber re-used pretty much every fitting. HVAC guy advised me to turn off the water heater until the vent was fixed. Also, he said an inspector was supposed to come by to make sure the job was up to code (I'm in Virginia), which was never mentioned to me and certainly never happened. Even if it's the wind he still didn't do a proper job. In every state that I know of, each joint on fume pipe should have a minimum of 3 screws in it, including the connection the HWT. He obviously didn't do that.
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Dec 19, 2017 22:06
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Rubiks Pubes posted:We recently bought a house which was built in 1977. It is a split level. The two upstairs toilets do not flush very well- there is always a bit of toilet paper or something that floats back up and requires a second flush. I noticed the previous owner had adjusted the float so that the tank was not filling up to the normal level so I fixed that. I also noticed that he had turned the shutoff valve about 60% closed which I corrected. This made the flushing better but still not at the level I would consider normal. I did a vinegar soak in the tank of one of the toilets and that didn’t help much. Is this just going to be an “it’s an old toilet” thing? The date stamps in the tank on both toilets is 1977 so They look to be original to the house. Use a wire hanger and clean out the jet holes, both in the bottom and under the rim. That might help a bit. You could also raise the water level in the tank a little higher.
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Dec 20, 2017 00:11
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I rent, but have pretty crap maintenance, so it's not something that'll get fixed unless there's sewage everywhere or the HVAC isn't working. They don't fix anything else until you become the squeaky wheel with their corporate office. Regardless, I'm curious what's causing this. Background: I'm in a 12 unit apartment building. It's basically a 4 plex, but 3 stories, all the same layout. All 4 bathrooms on each floor share walls (and, I assume, drains). I'm on the top floor, so I'm not too worried about a backup (poo poo flows downhill etc  ).Sometimes I'll hear a loud gurgling from the bathroom (it's like my toilet flushing, but much louder). I'll walk into the bathroom to find my toilet has emptied itself, and barely has any water in it. Sometimes when I flush my toilet, I'll hear the same noise from my next door neighbor's bathroom (thin walls). I haven't asked them about it; we both work odd hours and don't really see each other much, but I can hear when they shower, and when they flush their toilet. Everything else mostly drains fine (wet bar and bathroom sink drain a little slow; kitchen sink, shower, and clothes washer all drain fine). Toilet doesn't clog easily at all, but sometimes TP comes back up after it flushes. Am I right in assuming there's probably a clogged vent? If so, will this eventually lead to a backup? If there's a chance it might, I'll go ahead and add sewage backup to my renters insurance.. kinda assumed I wouldn't need it, being on the top floor and all.. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Dec 23, 2017 |
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Dec 23, 2017 08:53
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Yep, sounds like a partially clogged vent. If you're on the top floor and that's happening, then the clog is probably right at the roof. I doubt anything is going to back up into your apartment.
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Dec 23, 2017 18:25
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Between you confirming what I suspected, and the apartment under mine having been empty for over 6 months now, that just moves it firmly into the "not my problem" category. Yeah, I'm gonna be that tenant, but it took 3 months to get a leak fixed when I moved in, 2 more months to get another leak fixed (which caused a decent amount of ceiling damage to the apartment under mine), and 6 weeks to get them to unclog the condensation drain in my HVAC, so the number of fucks I give is roughly -10000 until it affects me. Even if I did report it.. the property management wouldn't do poo poo until poo poo was flooding out of every drain in the building.
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Dec 24, 2017 11:37
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Hello. I am going to be putting together a temporary kitchen shortly and I'm going to need to do the basic plumbing for it. I'm hoping for some advice and sanity checks. My plumbing knowledge is very limited; I understand what the various pipes are for and some basics about safety and flow. I have a 110mm soil stack rising about 500mm out of the ground. This particular stub was tapped off of the soil run from an old downstairs toilet which is long since gone. It leads out the front of the house and connects to my main drainage into the sewer. To my knowledge the soil stack has no built-in trap. I also have hot and cold ~18mm copper pipe stubs with push-fit caps on them. I need to connect a sink (hot/cold/waste), a washing machine (cold/waste), a dishwasher (cold/waste) and probably a dryer (waste). My best guess list of things I need to do are: - Bring the 110mm soil stack down to a more normal waste pipe width (32 or 40mm?) - Run a PVC (push-fit?) waste pipe at the correct angle along the line of appliances - Either put a single trap in near the stack or individual traps (preferences?) - Run PVC (push-fit?) hot/cold feeds along the line of appliances - Add junctions/connectors/hoses for all the above - Hang all of this from my temporary kitchen worktop I'm in the UK so some of the specifics may vary from what you're used to, e.g. our washing machines etc take 3/4" BSP hoses. I will have all the appliances and fittings in front of me before I start so I can confirm pipe and connector diameters before I head off to Wickes or whatever. Please help me to not gently caress up.
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Dec 28, 2017 22:19
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I don't know how things work in the UK, but here each fixture has to be individually trapped. Where is the washing machine discharge going? Does the soil stack penetrate the roof of the house? A diagram of where things are located would make this a lot easier to understand. Keep in mind my plumbing codes here could be way different than yours. I am in an IPC (International Plumbing Code) state. I know nothing about UK building and construction codes.
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Dec 29, 2017 06:03
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BubbaGrace posted:Where is the washing machine discharge going? Does the soil stack penetrate the roof of the house? A diagram of where things are located would make this a lot easier to understand. Here you go:  BubbaGrace posted:I don't know how things work in the UK, but here each fixture has to be individually trapped. BubbaGrace posted:Keep in mind my plumbing codes here could be way different than yours. I am in an IPC (International Plumbing Code) state. I know nothing about UK building and construction codes. It's probably the same here, and I don't mind doing things like individual traps per fixture even if they turn out to technically not be needed, but don't worry about this being up to local code since it's a temporary fitting and will be entirely thrown away and redone by a proper plumber when I put the real kitchen in. As long as it's safe and functional I'm happy, if that happens to match IPC I don't mind. Jaded Burnout fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Dec 29, 2017 |
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Dec 29, 2017 12:35
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I recently had a contracting company put a dog wash into my laundry room (Basically a waist level mop sink with some tile around it). It has a faucet with individual hot and cold handles, hooked to what used to be the washer lines. When I turn on the hot water, it takes 30-90 seconds for any water to come out. From there it only takes about 5 seconds to warm all the way up, but it sputters and crackles (like there was air in the line maybe?). All the other faucets in the house have instant water when I use the hot, and the dog wash is 5 feet from the hot water heater. Nothing seems to be leaking/dripping. It takes longer when it hasn't been used for several days. The contractor is going to come out next week and take a look, but is there some obvious thing going on here anyone can tell?
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Dec 30, 2017 01:28
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Jaded Burnout posted:Here you go: edit: just discovered that ventless dryers exist, so scratch that last one.
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Dec 30, 2017 05:45
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GWBBQ posted:The things that stand out to me as wrong with this include dishwasher on cold instead of hot, washing machine with only cold Our dishwashers and washing machines used to take hot and cold feeds some decades ago, then the hot became optional, and now most don't bother with the hot at all, they just heat the water electrically. I'm sure some still take hot feeds but mine don't. GWBBQ posted:nothing is vented Could you clarify this? GWBBQ posted:I'm also really confused about a water drain on a dryer. Yeah it's a condenser dryer which right now is condensing into an internal tank that I have to empty manually, but it has a hose I can hook up instead.
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Dec 30, 2017 07:09
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