General Craft & DIY discussion

I grew up dealing with galvanized pipe for water supply & cast iron for waste. It was tough to work with & often required a real plumber because we simply didn't have the tools. Sometimes we thought we did, then found out half way through that we didn't. Whoops.

As a remodeler, I mostly worked with copper & then PVC pipe came along. Copper wasn't bad, but we had acidic water, so I dealt with it a LOT more often than I liked. Even good type M (or was it L?) would spring a pin hole leak after too few years of service in one house we lived in. Soldering joints under sinks & in tight places was never fun, but when they outlawed lead & went to antinomy solder, it became a real nightmare. The newer solder wasn't nearly as forgiving temperature-wise & I'm not an expert, just fairly handy.

CPVC had come along by then, so I ripped out the copper as I could & replaced it with this space age plastic. I didn't think anything could be better. The pipe flexed some & it was easy enough to cut, prime, & glue. I still love it.

When we moved to KY, we were more interested in the land. Our house is a 10 year old modular home. It was brought on to the site in 2 pieces & put together. All the piping is PEX. I'd never dealt with PEX, but had with Qwest, so I was suspicious. (Anyone else remember Qwest? Great flexible pipe, but the fittings tended to go. Lots of class action lawsuits there.)

I read up & asked around about PEX. I heard lots of horror stories about the crimping tool that was needed & how even the good ones could create delayed, intermittent leaks. I put off dealing with it.

Then we lost power for 6 days during an ice storm & the temperatures went down to zero. A friend's copper pipe burst & he needed help repairing it. I went to my local hardware store & the owner suggested fixing the leak with PEX pipe & SharkBite unions. Wow! Plumbing has NEVER been easier. The SharkBites slipped on to the end of the copper pipe after I cleaned the paint off. I cut the PEX pipe to length, stuck one end in, then bent it & pushed in the other. Done! No leak & very little fuss. I bought the better variety that can even be removed so that line (in the corner of his garage) can be drained if the situation arises again.

We've had 2 faucets go in the past 2 months. Neither could be fixed, but had to be replaced. Both were a complete pain, too.

The first was the tub faucet. It's a weird tub, only big enough for one, but deep with jets & all, so it was easy enough to get under it to the plumbing. Unfortunately, it had no shut off valves. It didn't have a standard set, so I had to redrill the tub to fit a new fixture.

The second was the kitchen sink. It was standard & had shut off valves, but the hot water supply line didn't want to seal correctly. I pulled, cleaned & put it back on. It still took an extra nudge of the wrench to make it seal. I was suspicious, so checked it a couple of times over the next few days, but it seemed alright. Then a week went by & suddenly it was leaking again. Made quite a mess.

Sigh... I should know better. It took 2 weeks to dry it out & now the shelf down there is warped. Once I replaced the supply line, all was fine.

Mold is one of the things I hate the worst. It seems about impossible to get rid of, especially if someone used a cheap caulk in some place like a shower stall. Anyone have any luck getting rid of it?

I've tried a lot of methods over the years. Our old bathroom was full of ceramic tile. No one had ever sealed the grout & the mold got into it. I scrubbed with bleach & about gassed myself a couple of times, but there was always some left to grow its way back out. Since the color scheme was Avocado green & gold, ripping it all out & starting over worked, but it was expensive.

Our new place is only 10 years old & all the fixtures are white. The fiberglass shower stall had bad caulk along the joint between it & the door frame. I cleaned it all out. I scraped, scrubbed & gassed myself yet again. I let it dry for a day, then used a hair dryer to make sure it was really dry before caulking it again. I used really good silicone caulk, about $7 a tube, too. Still, it wasn't long before some mold showed itself again. I'm at my wits end for getting rid of it.

Don't you just love kids? They can definitely call on your creative side. My daughter posed an interesting plumbing challenge to me this week: How do you get a pen out of a toilet without pulling the toilet?

It was just a cheap, click pen, maybe 5" long & it fell out of her pocket & took a ride into the toilet. It got stuck in the top of the cranes neck of the toilet. It didn't seem as if it did much damage at first. It was my bath room & just liquids flushed fine, but the water level in the bowl was a bit lower than normal. Turns out that solids seemed to flush fine, but you found out the next flush that they hadn't. A plunger took care of the problem quickly, though.

Since I don't have a 5 year old around with a tiny hand (Yes, I have resorted to that for lost toys.) I tried catching it with a snake & that didn't work, no matter what I put on the snake or how I bent up the end. I asked at the hardware store & they told me just to pull the toilet. I hate doing that, so I thought some more.

Finally, I got a scrap of Red cedar about 1/2"x3/4"x2" long & cut a groove in the center that I could tie a light piece of nylon string around that was about 3' long. I flushed the scrap, waited until the water stopped running & pulled. Out popped the pen! I figured the cedar would float to the top & catch the pen. It did. There was a bit of a tense moment when the cedar block didn't want to come, but then it popped free, too.

What, you didn't try flushing a fishing lure and reeling it in?

I did. Wouldn't catch.

That was a joke, BTW. I'd be scared any hooks would catch the toilet & the only line I have is probably really old 6 lb test. I haven't had the rods out in ages.

For a while my ex-wife was living without plumbing (long story.. I helped her build her house in stages.. now she has it all!) and I was lettting her dump her bucket in my toilet. Then one day nothing would go down.. period!

When I took it apart I discovered whole brocoli stems jammed in the elbow. (The ex doesn't have much common sense!). After that I made her dig a hole!

Having just spent an inordinant amount of time beneath the kitchen sink, I would like to voice my assertion that Flowtite valves are an abomination in the eyes of the gods of engineering and their creator should be condemned to the hell of wind and ghosts.

There are few feelings of futility more profound than when a valve comes apart in your hand, and turns into a geyser.

Oh, that sucks! I've never used them. I love Shark Bites, although I have to be sure to push them together firmly. I had to reseat one that was tough to get at while doing the hot water heater. They don't look as pretty as the few Flowtites that I saw when I googled them just now. Still, they're a valve & I really don't care what they look like so long as they work.

The compression fitting held. The handle and valve stem came completely out of the valve body. I upgraded to an old fasioned ball valve with a metal body.

Oy! That's a mess.

Jim wrote: "Mold is one of the things I hate the worst. It seems about impossible to get rid of, especially if someone used a cheap caulk in some place like a shower stall. Anyone have any luck getting rid o..."

Did you ever find a good fix for the mold problem?
People need to know !

Nope. I wonder if a paste could be made out of bleach & left on for a while. Maybe I should try scrubbing with vinegar. Acidic rather than base might kill it better since soap is also a base.

Busy day today. Josh & I replaced their hot water heater this morning. That was a bit of a comedy of errors, but it's in & working fine. It came out that I give the poor kid tediously long instructions on some things he knows well & then don't on things he doesn't. Found that out when I told him to siphon the water out of his old one & call me when he had it going well. I figured that would give me time to get my tools together & get down there. He forgot to turn off the breakers & open the vent (which he didn't know about) or even any faucets, so I wound up cooling my heels for half an hour after I got it going correctly.

During the waiting period we were looking around the soon to be backyard & found that we need to take a big maple tree down before putting in the fence. Someone clipped it years ago & it's mostly rotted inside & tall enough that it will hit the house if it falls the way it wants to. It will crush the fence we're planning to put up just about any way it falls. Nothing is ever as simple as I'd like it.

It's been cold & rainy today so I spent the morning going through an old toolbox a guy at work gave me. It was mostly plumbing stuff, but had a canvas pack of blades for a Stanley 45 multiplane in it. (Look at the last 2 pages for the blades.) I saw them & jumped for joy. He didn't know what they were & was amused by my enthusiasm. To me they're a treasure. Being a wood geek, I have one although I don't use it often.

These blades are kind of rusty & I don't think there are any that I don't already have, so maybe I'll trade them for some of the special cutters. I have most of those, too. I think they came with a busted 55 multiplane I found once. Or I might alter them for custom shapes, as needed. I generally do that by making a scraper, though.

The plumbing stuff was nice. Josh didn't have any pipe wrenches, so now he has a couple. There was a nice big pipe cutter that I hope never to use, but will keep. It also prodded me into dumping my old plumbing tool boxes & cleaning the junk out. One was an old tackle box with a busted closure, so I cut the lid off & stuck it in this big, metal tool box. I was then able to pile in all the parts to either side & put the tools in the top tray of the new-to-me toolbox.

That freed up the weird old metal toolbox. It was my father's, so I'll keep it & find some use for it. I always seem to, anyway.

I decided it was time to get rid of the cast iron pipe stuff, except for the oakum. I still use that for packing occasionally. I put all the copper & Quest pipe stuff on the bottom since I mostly use PVC, CPVC, & Pex now. Much easier. It also came with a nice old seat grinder still in its box. I can't recall the last time I had to grind a seat. Doubt I'll ever have to around here since the water is so good. No deposits or acid.

Another find were 2 pairs of old safety glasses in metal cases. One set is clear, the other is dark tinted for gas welding. It's a shame they're kind of rusty because apparently they're worth a bunch in good shape judging by this Ebay auction.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Vintage-Americ...
$125?!!! I might need to see about cleaning these up. I thought they were a fun find, but if I could get half that for them - sold!

Jim wrote: "Mold is one of the things I hate the worst. It seems about impossible to get rid of, especially if someone used a cheap caulk in some place like a shower stall. Anyone have any luck getting rid of ..."

Do you know if a steamer can be used on caulk and grout ?
It's a household steamer, not industrial strength.

I've never tried. I've used a heat gun on some caulks occasionally, though.

Bathrooms were one of the most common remodeling jobs I used to have. Most started with tearing out old tile & ended by replacing it, but usually not all. Fiberglass tub surrounds were very popular. That's the wettest area with the least ventilation so was usually the mold capital of the bathroom. Floors & sink back splashes usually weren't as bad, although the area behind the toilet was usually ugly even in well cleaned bathrooms. (We won't discuss those that weren't cleaned well. Ugly, smelly, yucky.)

I doubt if a steamer would do much to grout since it is pretty mortar, a cement compound. It's pretty when new, but it's a pain as it ages unless maintained well. Not only does it need to be cleaned really well, but it needs to be sealed fairly often. I think once or twice a year is recommended. Sealers are usually silicone based which means they make the shiny surfaces of the tiles very slippery.

The house moves, so the grout cracks which is why inside corners are always caulked, not grouted like the face or outside corners. Where the caulk & grout meet is a perfect place for mold to grow & it often does so by going under the caulk, so that has to be pulled every few years & redone. Few do that. A really good, pure silicone caulk needs to be used, not the cheap paintable stuff. Mold grows right into that.

Slight cracks can open any place & they're often so small that they can't be seen until mold has invaded & lined them. Once it has, nasty chemicals need to be used to kill it off. It's best if the grout is removed (They make a diamond grout saw that's cheap.) sanitized, & filled with new which is always going to be a slightly different color. It has to dry completely & be sealed, so the bathroom is off limits for a few days.

It's not all bad & has worked in a lot of bathrooms for a lot of years. It depends on how fussy a person is. Good ventilation to dry the bathroom quickly helps extend its life quite a bit.