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Check to make sure there are no giant hairballs in the trap, those usually clog up first. If you are taking it all apart, you can just go ahead and replace all those rubber bushings, should be about $4 for the whole lot. They need to be hand tight, but make sure you crank on them hard. And do check that the water is not coming from further up, such as vanity connection or lever mechanism.
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Apr 15, 2024 21:48
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Nitrox posted:Check to make sure there are no giant hairballs in the trap, those usually clog up first. The trap has been 100% empty (well, except when there's water in it) every time I checked it, so if there's a clog, it has to be further down the line. Like I only, only a couple feet of pipe till it meets the bathroom vent stack pipe so not a lot of space to hide. And no water from the connections to the stopper lever or vanity handles. Just from the downspout/P-trap. And again...NOT WHEN WATER IS RUNNING, it won't show until 10-15 minutes later. Didn't get a chance to dig more into it this week cause other life issues got in the way, so I'll investigate more this weekend. I'll snake the drain to where it hits the vent stack, and the re-assemble with some pipe dope on new washers and see if that helps.
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Apr 19, 2024 15:59
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I have a relatively simple problem, but I wanted to check what my options are. As of a few days ago, I started hearing a dripping noise coming from the back of my toilet. Checked it out to see a small puddle back there. Initial thought was the supply line (or worse, the cutoff valve) was leaking. But after closer inspection, it seems like it was coming from the seal around the threaded pipe coming out of the tank. See picture: Leaking stops when the tank is about 1/4 full. So, there is a pressure threshold. And when I moved to tighten/untighten the supply line connector, jostling that pipe, water bubbles started spurting from the edges of the circled areas in the picture. Would it be fine to just empty out the tank and caulk around the interior and exterior of that seal? Would it be better to just replace the whole toilet? (I plan on doing that at some point anyway because all three toilets in this place are non-standard, low sitting decorative one-piece bowls that aren't the most comfortable things to sit on and use a shitton of water. Why are colored toilets so goddamn expensive?  )
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Apr 20, 2024 16:08
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AlternateNu posted:I have a relatively simple problem, but I wanted to check what my options are. As of a few days ago, I started hearing a dripping noise coming from the back of my toilet. Checked it out to see a small puddle back there. Initial thought was the supply line (or worse, the cutoff valve) was leaking. But after closer inspection, it seems like it was coming from the seal around the threaded pipe coming out of the tank. See picture: Just replace the fill valve. You'll get a new seal included. Fill valves are only like $10. Colored toilets were always like that. My grandparents with their lavender toilet... If you replace your toilet(s), you want American Standard Cadet 3. They're absolutely bulletproof. kid sinister fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Apr 20, 2024 |
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Apr 20, 2024 18:50
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We had a sewer backup a week ago between the clean out in front of my house and the street. I couldn't clear it with a manual snake and we needed to be able to use water that day and no rental places were open, so I called roto rooter to snake it. Apparently that service comes with an included video survey of the line afterwards. I finally had it done and I found out I have old clay pipe once the ABS stuff ends at the clean out. While there were some offsets and some root intrusion, the pipe looked pretty good otherwise. The guy who videod the thing tried to hard sell me on them doing the fix via pipe bursting, telling me he was convinced it was going to collapse at any time. With such a hard sell, I suspect the pricing, which looked outrageous, is, in fact, outrageous. Does anyone here have an idea of what 50 feet of pipe bursting should cost in California? With decent but not great looking clay pipe, would I be an idiot to just buy a $300 powered snake from harbor freight and run a root cutter down the lateral once a year?
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Apr 30, 2024 05:11
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I have exactly the same situation as you - I have cast iron under my house to the cleanout, and then clay pipe for like 100 feet out to the sewer. And a big mature sycamore tree on top of it, which intrudes a little with tiny roots. It's necessary for me to have my plumber team come and root it out about once every two years, they remove a ball of small roots and it costs about $300. I figure the trenchless replacement - which is what your guy is selling you on - is minimum $8k. That means it takes over 52 years at current prices to pay back compared to just having the thing roto-rooted every two years. I'll be long dead by then. If the scope actually shows major huge fissures and cracks then maybe it's gonna collapse. If it's just ceramic with some minor root intrusion it may be fine. Ours has been fine for 14 years so far. I will say the normal powered snakes that are cheap don't cut it for my situation. I did go rent one of the big boys from home depot and do it myself once, but my closest home depot doesn't have the rentals so I had to drive 15 miles to one that did, and the rental was like $80, and it makes a mess, and I decided I'm totally OK with paying pros with pro-tier equipment. YMMV a lot depending on how much line you have to root out, how bad it gets, etc. e. trenchless can be cheaper than a full trench replacement. I have heard mixed opinions about it. I suspect it's mostly fine except rare occasions where it's not. In my case to do anything other than trenchless replacement will require the removal of a 125' mature healthy sycamore tree, and I'm not doing that.
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Apr 30, 2024 06:52
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Xenix posted:We had a sewer backup a week ago between the clean out in front of my house and the street. I couldn't clear it with a manual snake and we needed to be able to use water that day and no rental places were open, so I called roto rooter to snake it. Apparently that service comes with an included video survey of the line afterwards. I finally had it done and I found out I have old clay pipe once the ABS stuff ends at the clean out. While there were some offsets and some root intrusion, the pipe looked pretty good otherwise. The guy who videod the thing tried to hard sell me on them doing the fix via pipe bursting, telling me he was convinced it was going to collapse at any time. With such a hard sell, I suspect the pricing, which looked outrageous, is, in fact, outrageous. Roto-Rooter has become an emergency water mitigation/mission creep nightmare, for some years now. They used to be decent franchises for drain clearing & basic plumbing - a bit pricey, but reliable. Ever since they discovered the cash cow that is water mitigation and 'mold prevention' (scam) services, they've become increasingly rapacious and pushy about up-selling, and their charges are outrageous. They're still pricey but generally OK for line clearing, just resist the aggressive push to up-sell (which is very, very difficult for some folks). Running a camera in the line is the next step ONLY after some issue has been encountered when they score out a line, like the head getting snagged, or chunks of pipe coming out on the withdraw. Before doing a pipe re-line: they need to provide you a copy of the video since they charged you for it, and determine exactly why they think it's needed. And absolutely, get at least two other bids. Lastly, check your homeowner's insurance and see if you have something called "service line" coverage. It'll be an endorsement, Coverage should be $5K or $10K, and it covers the expense up to those limits for digging up & replacing a failed line that caused water damage in your home (hint: it doesn't have to be much of any damage; it can be anything affected by the plumbing escape). PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Apr 30, 2024 |
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Apr 30, 2024 15:00
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I have two possible projects I'm trying to figure out: 1) The floor drain for the HVAC condensate and water heater overflow is really, really slow. Thankfully it's only like 6 feet from the main stack, so there can't be much of a horizontal run. I think it's probably just full of silt/dirt. I wouldn't want to push the sludge down into the main drain, so presumably I'd want like, a hose attachment I could put on my wet/dry shop vac to try to suck it out? I'm not sure any 'snakes' would be helpful as I don't think there's any like hairballs or anything in there. 2) I have a 'frost-free' outdoor hose hookup that's cracked, because the hose was left on and so the ice creeped back inside and it broke inside the house. Made a hell of a mess the first time we turned it on and didn't realize it was spraying water inside. Thankfully it closes. Unfortunately the internal valve assembly, though it had screw threads, was slid OVER the copper pipe and soldered on? My thinking would be cutting it off, putting a screw hookup on, so that future hose hookups could be swapped out? That seems too daunting unless I have a torch to do my own soldering. Shark bite with a female screw end? But those don't rotate so I'm not sure how it would work. The frost free hose bib looks like this, basically: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Prier-Products-10-in-Half-Turn-frost-Proof-wall-hydrant-1-2-in-MIP-x-1-2-in-SWT-478-10/314013372 And they just slid it over the top of some like 1/2 inch copper pipe and soldered it instead of using the threads. If I were to cut the pipe, could you conceivably put something like this on to mate with future hose bibs without soldering every time, or is that bad idea? Not this one because the female part doesn't rotate freely obviously. https://www.homedepot.com/p/SharkBite-Max-3-4-in-Push-to-Connect-x-FIP-Brass-Adapter-Fitting-UR088A/326882358
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Apr 30, 2024 16:52
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Rescue Toaster posted:2) I have a 'frost-free' outdoor hose hookup that's cracked, because the hose was left on and so the ice creeped back inside and it broke inside the house. Made a hell of a mess the first time we turned it on and didn't realize it was spraying water inside. Thankfully it closes. Unfortunately the internal valve assembly, though it had screw threads, was slid OVER the copper pipe and soldered on? My thinking would be cutting it off, putting a screw hookup on, so that future hose hookups could be swapped out? That seems too daunting unless I have a torch to do my own soldering. Shark bite with a female screw end? But those don't rotate so I'm not sure how it would work. Just solder a new one in. Measure or take the old one to the store to match its length. You may want to open the new one up, unscrew its stem, then solder on the new housing, then finally assemble the thing again.
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Apr 30, 2024 19:49
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kid sinister posted:Just solder a new one in. Measure or take the old one to the store to match its length. You may want to open the new one up, unscrew its stem, then solder on the new housing, then finally assemble the thing again. Yeah looking at it there's not much room to do anything other than solder one in. Unfortunately it's also a weird cramped overhead spot with a bunch of other pipes around. Also there is no shutoff in that line other than the main whole house shutoff. So this is probably not a good place to give it my first try at soldering by myself, as if I got stuck somehow I'd be pretty hosed until a plumber came out.
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Apr 30, 2024 23:55
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How important is it to bevel the cut ends of PVC pipe? The glue package says it's important, but I don't see anyone doing it in Youtube videos.
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May 1, 2024 00:23
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Squashy Nipples posted:How important is it to bevel the cut ends of PVC pipe? The glue package says it's important, but I don't see anyone doing it in Youtube videos. Uh, going to say not as I've never done it, or seen a plumber do it (including the one I worked for, for a while). Purely anecdotal however. E: Oh definitely deburr, and remove loose bits, went straight to thinking like 45 degree bevel or something hah Rakeris fucked around with this message at 17:20 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 01:00
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Squashy Nipples posted:How important is it to bevel the cut ends of PVC pipe? The glue package says it's important, but I don't see anyone doing it in Youtube videos. I use a piece of emory paper (for shining copper pipe) or 100-grit sandpaper to clean my PVC cuts, Just wrap it over the inside & outside, and run your hand around the end of the pipe a couple times. Cleans off anything loose & puts a slight bevel on it. I'm mostly concerned with removing any loose bits
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May 1, 2024 02:34
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Xenix posted:Does anyone here have an idea of what 50 feet of pipe bursting should cost in California? With decent but not great looking clay pipe, would I be an idiot to just buy a $300 powered snake from harbor freight and run a root cutter down the lateral once a year? To give a data point, we're in socal and had a clog in the house that was fixed with an emergency hydro jet service almost a year ago for about $900. They did a camera inspection and showed me roots in the pipe. They said it was where my lateral meets the main and I'd have to pay to dig up the whole street when it goes. They offered to dig down to a buried cleanout, bring it to grade, clear the pipe, and do a fiberglass sleeve. It was 25ft for $15k. They then offered to dig my lawn by the sidewalk, install a new cleanout, and sleeve 15ft for $10k. I've since learned from the water dept that I'm responsible for maintenance of the entire lateral but they are responsible for repair beyond my property line. They are really nice and came out several times while I was trying to figure it out. The water dept guy said I could just call them to be there while the rooter co was upselling to avoid misunderstanding. bred fucked around with this message at 04:23 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 04:18
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PainterofCrap posted:I use a piece of emory paper (for shining copper pipe) or 100-grit sandpaper to clean my PVC cuts, Gotcha: deburr and break the edge, the same basic standard for metal cutting.
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May 1, 2024 16:58
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Leperflesh posted:I have exactly the same situation as you - I have cast iron under my house to the cleanout, and then clay pipe for like 100 feet out to the sewer. And a big mature sycamore tree on top of it, which intrudes a little with tiny roots. It's necessary for me to have my plumber team come and root it out about once every two years, they remove a ball of small roots and it costs about $300. Yeah, the quote I got was 3 times that. I called a plumber I hire a lot at work and while his company does pipe bursting, they don't have the correct license to dig in the street. He had the same amount of work done on his lateral about a year ago for 9k, so Roto Rooter certainly was trying to take me for a ride. He gave me the contact info for the company that did his house, so we'll see what they quote. The pipe itself looked to be in really good condition. I hire out a fair number of video surveys for work (to assess soil settlement beneath pile supported buildings in an area with significant post-construction settlement), but that's always PVC or cast iron pipe. I don't know anything about clay. The tech trying to sell me the job told me one fitting was just about ready to collapse, but he skirted on by it and wouldn't give me a second look, which is fishy as gently caress. PainterofCrap posted:Before doing a pipe re-line: they need to provide you a copy of the video since they charged you for it, and determine exactly why they think it's needed. Yeah, unfortunately the guy refused to give me a video unless I choose to work with them. I'm trying to figure out how to get an inexpensive video survey done (my office may be buying one soon, though I don't think the cost justifies it for how much we'd use it, so maybe I'll push for that to happen and then borrow it) so I can get a more informed opinion. I'll check my homeowner's insurance. It kind of sucks being in an industry where I learn a bit about plumbing, but only enough to make me worry.
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May 2, 2024 02:46
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quote:Yeah, unfortunately the guy refused to give me a video unless I choose to work with them. If you paid for a scope (or they include the scope as part of other work) then they give you the goddamn video. That's the deliverable of the scope. Light them up on google reviews for failing to give you what they paid for if they don't.
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May 2, 2024 02:53
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Squashy Nipples posted:I'm installing a heat pump for my above ground pool, but I don't know jack poo poo about PVC plumbing. Based on various internet opinions, I decided on the three-way diverter valve instead of the ball valve ladder. The manual for the heat pump depicts the ladder in the diagram in the manual, but the text of the manual implies that the three-way valve is the better way to go. Anyway, getting close! Base is built, electric is installed, I redid all the plumbing on the pump and filter, and now I just need to decide on final plumbing design for the heat pump. Here is the layout, the pump/filter and heat pump are almost, but not quite, 22.5 degrees apart.  For plumbing, I can put the valves on the near side, or right by the inlet/outlet for the heatpump. Option one, valves on farside:  Longer hose, shorter PVC. Option two, valves on nearside:  Shorter hose, longer PVC. I also feel like I would have to support this one permanently (it's sitting on some bricks right now).
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May 2, 2024 17:00
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I think that having the valves near the filter (nearside) is more convenient? Unless I'm missing something. Also, a second take on the valves on the farside design. This is kind like Lego! 
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May 2, 2024 17:04
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