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Got the sewer line scoped on a house we are purchasing. Most of the line looks great, nice 6" pipe with minimal issues at the joints:  But there is a ~10' section right at the beginning that looks like... well... poo poo. Narrower pipe corroded to hell with very sharp bits flaking into the passage, lots of buildup:  The house was originally platted for septic in the 60s. Best I can figure is when they converted it to sewer they kept the original 4" pipe in the section from under the house into the yard because they didn't want to have to dig out that bit by hand  and then tied in a new run of 6" pipe to the sewer line. I'm pretty set on replacing the first bit since it is going to be a magnet for clogs as is and I'm not sure that the 60 year old pipe will take kindly to descaling. But since the awful section is under the house it is the most expensive section to replace and replacing the whole thing is only marginally more expensive and I'm leaning towards just replacing the whole run. That would also get me a clean out not under the crawlspace. But more importantly we could get it done before we move in and it would mean not having to worry about the sewer line and the possibility of having to got several days without a shitter in the future. Crazy?
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Jan 16, 2023 18:53
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What does the other end look like? I hope it isn't just soft copper disappearing into a hole in the wall. Are other sinks in the house the same way? I would definitely add a valve, this is one of those situations where you'd be doing future-you a solid. FWIW Soldering copper pipe is easier than you'd think. With the proper prep and a small amount of good flux the solder gets sucked right into the joint but won't wet where it shouldn't go. If the flux runs onto the pipe when it starts to melt wipe off the excess before resuming heat and trying to add solder, that will help keep the solder from flowing where you don't want it to go.
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Jan 19, 2023 19:22
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  Well, that's a new one.
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Jan 28, 2023 16:34
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The low where that was taken hasn't been below freezing for at least a week and a half, and in any case the frost depth there is about 3-5". No idea what made it go, maybe the roots were involved somehow. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Jan 29, 2023 |
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Jan 29, 2023 04:51
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slurm posted:So this is something I've been willfully ignoring for a long time through the use of alcohol and denial, but I live in a "forever chemical" hotspot and need advice on whole-home RO. As I understand it this stuff isn't safe to drink, bathe in, wash clothes or dishes in, or even flush with, and nothing else really gets it out of the water. I understand my water use will increase drastically and I will need tanks, pumps, pre and post filters, remineralizer, UV, etc. but I was wondering if anyone here had experience with the actual process or residential systems. I was in charge of a marine RO unit for a few years so I know how finicky RO can be but fresh to fresh has much lower membrane pressures so at least I have that going for me in a home setup. Have you sent off any samples to see if they show up in your water? That would be step one for me, and if the samples are clean draw up a monitoring plan to do them regularly to make sure nothing has changed.
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Feb 16, 2023 00:27
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Jaded Burnout posted:Quick waste drainage question; when it comes to outdoor soil pipes, is it necessary to always have a vent pipe "upstream" of the traps, or is it adequate to have a single main vent for the system? You absolutely need venting of some sort at each drain, doubly so if there is a toilet using the same branch of the drain, triply so if the toilet is on the second floor. If you don't you will get gurgling and strange drainage at best and at worst when you flush the toilet all of the water in the traps will gush out like old faithful.
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Feb 23, 2023 00:41
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Here's the sink fixture: https://www.kingstonbrass.com/products/kingston-brass-ks3951px-polished-chrome Edit: don't see the exact faucet for the bath, but the handles on many of their offerings are drat close. I would just use new valves, diverter, and handles and shine up and remount the existing faucet bit. Bathroom of Theseus. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Mar 4, 2023 |
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Mar 4, 2023 02:43
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The main thing to know about heat pump water heaters is that it takes a LOT of energy to warm up water. Taking 50 gallons of water from 65°F to 120°F requires about 24MJ of energy, which even figuring in a 2.5-3.0 COP is enough to cool all of the air in a 2500sqft house by something like 50-60°F. So venting the room you have the water heater in is very important or you'll end up with an icebox.
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Mar 22, 2023 00:15
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Guy Axlerod posted:What kind of cooling capacity do they have? The ones I saw were about half of a typical window air conditioner. Yeah that's about right, most can pull 5kw or so but that's due to an additional electric resistive heating element. The point still stands that they will definitely cool down an enclosed area like a laundry/utility door same as running a window unit full blast. PurpleXVI posted:Is 120F(~50C) the normal hot water temp in the US/UK? I know in Denmark it'd be more like 130F(~55C), which would probably make it even worse in terms of energy use. Depends in the US. 120°F is the suggested setpoint to reduce scalding risk and energy use but that's still fairly close to the temperature that legionella can grow at.
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Mar 22, 2023 04:13
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Wiping your flux is for losers apparently    Ah poo poo the previous owner was a loving moron Bonus HVAC fuckery that you might have seen me post in other threads. I would say it is plumbing adjacent but "adjacent" would be an improvement. 
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Mar 24, 2023 00:46
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Getting/renting a borescope to check on the work hiding in the wall of the recently renovated master bathroom shower definitely moved waaaaaay up the list of priorities. My emergency kit is starting to look like the back of a plumbing van with the crazy hodgepodge variety of PVC and copper in this house. To add to the fun the cutoff valve is in the corner of the crawlspace furthest from the entrance, but I feel like that's the free-space of plumbing bingo.
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Mar 24, 2023 13:24
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SouthShoreSamurai posted:Is that... a pipe going straight through your duct? Yes, yes it is. That is a HVAC return duct with the copper drain pipe from the utility sink and washer punched right through it. To make it even more puzzling a new furnace/AC was installed on the other side of that wall in 2021 so the drain was almost certainly there first. The pipe has already been replaced (which didn't take much rerouting at all). When I get all moved in I'm going to go under there and take a look and see if there are any Indication of how old that duct insulation is.
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Mar 28, 2023 21:27
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 Needle go brrrrrrrrrrrr Guess I need a pressure regulator on this house.
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Apr 17, 2023 14:56
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Apr 23, 2023 00:27
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Thankfully that's Apple's crazy-aggressive image sharpening going utterly haywire on the combination of low-light, wiggly hand, wood grain, and long ago oxidized sap spots with Imgur's re-compression thrown on top. The wood is in good shape; you could use it as a hammer it is stupidly dense. It does look remarkably like horrific termite damage in that photo though. I did manage to confirm that the sharkbites are all part of the installation of the tankless water heater. They've been there for 15 years!
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Apr 23, 2023 02:43
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You can try working the mechanism a bit to dislodge whatever is keeping it from triggering. Cutting off the water and disconnecting the hose from the wall to drain out the valve sometimes works too. Other than that you might just need a new valve, they tend to fail in stupid ways like that. It is very easy to replace, takes about ten minutes including watching the YouTube video showing you what to do.
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May 9, 2023 10:59
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Those enzymatic buildup removers can help out a ton for bathroom and shower drains that are still slow after you've cleaned the parts leading to the trap. They work best over the course of a week or two.
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Jun 4, 2023 12:41
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I have to wonder if part of that comes down to being told "don't touch that, you'll break it." to the point that it completely sunk in.
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Jun 4, 2023 15:02
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Any suggestions on how to easiest clean out and caulk the edge of an undermount sink? I noticed there was a bit of gunk under the edge at one spot, gave it a small scrape followed by a hard spray, and heard the lovely sound of water hitting the floor of the cabinet. Looks like the installers didn't bother running the silicone sealant all the way around when they put it in and there's a 3-4" section at the very front of the sink that allows water through.  I was thinking about just cleaning it up the joint between the sink and countertop as best I can with a scraper and rubbing alcohol then running a small bead of silicone around the inner edge to hold out water until I can get the time to drop the sink and redo the entire silicone seal (probably in combination with installing a disposal). Would that be an acceptable temporary patch?
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Jun 7, 2023 11:19
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PurpleXVI posted:It sounds pretty reasonable, though if you're planning on the seal being there for a while rather than being a very short-term solution, make sure to use a sanitary silicone. They're usually specially made so black mold can't settle into them despite their constantly being exposed to moisture. It is held up by brackets, but I can see the old silicone around the edge under the counter. Actually if I leaned over and look with a flashlight I could see the uncompressed too-small bead of silicone in the section that was leaking. I used this GE kitchen and bath silicone. It seems to have done the trick and I hope it holds decently well.
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Jun 9, 2023 23:01
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I would come in from under the kitchen sink and leave an access panel there.
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Jul 2, 2023 11:37
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Pull the little metal disc back and you'll see that the chrome pipe coming out is threaded into a 90° elbow. That elbow is supposed to be anchored to framing but some aren't so take a look before you start wrenching on it.
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Aug 17, 2023 16:28
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epswing posted:Heh, yeah, the radiator is lower than the boiler. It's going to be fun filling small pans repeatedly with the water still in the rad. This kind of seems like a job for a shop vac. You should definitely have at the ready when doing the job. Drying up and spilled water will leave behind rust and whatnot, much better to suck it all up.
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Sep 25, 2023 09:33
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Use an impact wrench, there's really no substitute for it. The battery powered ones are amazing tools to keep around, and high end ones can be as good as or better than pneumatic ones. Take a sharpie or pencil and draw a line across the top of the bolt and onto the water heater housing. That way you can tell as soon as it starts to break free at which point you can switch over to regular tools to save the heater from a bit of vibration. Just be sure to flush the sediment out of the tank after you complete the replacement, because the vibration from the impact wrench will shake free a lot of stuff on the anode rod and on the walls of the tank.
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Sep 29, 2023 10:45
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I have a 1 1/2" sink drain that I need to cap off at the wye for a couple days. What's the best way to do it? Should I get a slip joint tailpiece and glue a pvc cap on, or is the threading just NPT that I can just stick a threaded cap on?
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Oct 14, 2023 20:47
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The county building inspector will be standing right in front of it check out some work on an electrical panel, I want it to be right.
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Oct 14, 2023 22:24
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That's the drain of a utility sink in the mudroom. I'm going to move the sink a bit so it won't be anywhere close to the working space of the panel, but I don't have time to have it buttoned up before when the electrical work needs done so I'm just going to temporarily remove it entirely.
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Oct 14, 2023 23:28
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It currently intrudes on one side of the working space in front of the panel so it needs to be either turned 90° and put back to the wall it was originally on before Gary hired Dingus LLC to put it where it is now, or I need to move it between the washer and dryer (which might warrant replacing it with a thinner sink). That second option is why I don't want to more permanently cap the wye until I know what the connection would look like. Either way I want it gone soon and I want the drain line to be able to handle the washer.
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Oct 15, 2023 03:09
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PainterofCrap posted:In 1996 I installed a Pittsburgh toilet in my basement, less than 2' from the panel. The electrician said that there's one county inspector who has a bit of a reputation for noticing and being a pain in the rear end on the rest of the project when they want something that is technically grandfathered in changed. We're installing a generator, transfer switch, adding kitchen circuits, and reworking the gas supply in a 1950-1960 house so there's a lot of places that inspector could make our lives harder. Also I mean, I get why. The sink really shouldn't be there and the plumbing company shouldn't have relocated it there. That said in a roundabout way the sink being there is actually kind of ensuring that the panel is accessible since you can't pile poo poo in front of the panel and still use the sink. After a lot of digging it looks like slip joint nuts adhere to NPT standards for thread pitch and size so I should be able to just slap a standard cap on there then move on to performing dark rituals to ensure that the CPVC and sharkbite supply line arrangement doesn't turn this into a much larger project. I'm really glad Gary left behind all the invoices and such from the contractors he hired to do work so that I can avoid ever hiring them.
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Oct 15, 2023 12:03
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KKKLIP ART posted:Moving to a rental soon and obviously want to replace the showerhead, but the shower arm is an angled shorty type of deal. How dumb and/or easy is it to also replace the shower arm as well so I can get myself a decent rainfall shower head pointing in a usable direction? It can take two minutes or transform into a multi-day project. It all depends on how stuck the current shower arm is and how well the elbow in the wall is secured to the studs.
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Nov 5, 2023 15:46
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Leperflesh posted:This is supposed to sort of grip the wall from behind, so the screws through the rondel (that is supposed to be for a hot/cold water handle but I'm misusing it) can screw into something and pull tight. Like... do you call this a furring strip? Drill pilot holes and run the screw through it before mounting so it is basically pre-threaded. That should make starting the screws gentle enough that the silicone can hold it in place.
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Dec 10, 2023 03:18
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There's also a sacrificial anode rod in the water heater that should have been corroding before everything else thanks to the magic of electrochemistry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3bY1UR77Dw I suspect that it is long gone which is why everything else is going to poo poo simultaneously. Just a warning: they are notoriously difficult to remove. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Dec 21, 2023 |
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Dec 21, 2023 13:29
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I think the black part rotated a bit and is now binding up. From the discoloration on the white lever I think it used to be here:
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Jan 26, 2024 18:50
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Is the original Drake really the only option that exists as far as a high-quality regular height toilet with elongated bowl? Pretty much everything else seems to be universal or ADA compliant height, which my wife and I find to be too high and which our young kid has a hard time getting onto quickly.
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Feb 7, 2024 19:34
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Make sure the leveling feet are all the way retracted on the refrigerator.
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Feb 8, 2024 23:01
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If you tighten down the black threaded piece that the rod passes through to the point where the rod won't move, that will let you figure out whether the issue is the rod moving or the size of the opening in the stopper. I know I've accidentally rebuilt a sink drain and left out a piece that restricted the rod to only move up and down and that made the stopper really floppy. Was there anything like that that could've gotten put in backwards or omitted?
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Feb 14, 2024 21:53
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Sometimes this is simple as a bubble getting in the wrong spot. You can drain the entire thing out and then turn it back on that usually gets the bubble caught by the larger bit of air that's being purged out when you first turn it back on. Just remember to have a way to shut the water off at the main if you do anything with the toilet because cutoff valves like to fail at the worst possible times.
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Feb 15, 2024 11:54
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I have a tub with a 3-handle Central Brass faucet. When I turn the cold water on high enough while the hot is off, a dribble of cold water comes out from the hot water knob. The handle on the hot valve is really on there so I'll need to pick up a puller to get access to the valve. It is used about twice a week or so and the cold water is rarely run without the hot also being on. How high a priority should it be to fix this?
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Mar 14, 2024 01:45
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You could dig around it to make sure, but that looks like a house trap to me. It was a way to prevent sewer gases from backing up into the house before it was determined that individual traps on each drain was a much better solution. They have a tendency to get clogged, but fortunately it is very easy to determine whether the clog is in the house trap or in the lateral between the trap and the sewer line. Open up the left cap and start running water down the drain until the water starts to rise. When that happens, open the right cap and see if the water level is the same as the left. Be ready for some smells when you open that right cap. If the water level on the left is significantly higher than the water level on the right, then your clog is in the trap itself. If the right hand water level is the same as the left-hand water level of the clog is further down the lateral. Cleaning the trap itself is fairly easy, but it is still sewer work so it is not going to be pleasant.
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Mar 20, 2024 15:49
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DrBouvenstein posted:Ahhh, ok. I looked that up and yeah, that seems to fit, though I'm still confused how the drain from the washing machine/bathroom gets to the right side of the house trap...I guess maybe the U bend in the trap just does deeper into the ground/basement floor than I'm thinking it does and the washer/bath drain goes around the left side? Cause here's the layout from the top-down from what I can SEE, no clue where the pipes are buried under the floor: Are you sure that the blue is the sewer out? Like you see it go out towards the street at that point?
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Mar 20, 2024 17:33
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