Does Your Home Harbor a Critter Gitter?

By Billy Aldridge

It first may come to your attention when your pipes start grumbling and growling or it may make its presence known by a foul odor that clearly emanates from the drain.  Either of these symptoms may indicate that something is impeding the smooth flow of air through your home’s vent stack.  While the blockage might be caused by leaf litter, it is also a real possibility that a squirrel or some other small mammal has become trapped in there and died.  That’s the bad news.  The good news is to clear the clog all you need is a ladder, a flashlight, gardening gloves, a garden hose, and drain tape. (The latter item can be found at any hardware store.)

Vent stacks consist of a series of pipes that are designed to release sewer gases outside of your home.  These vents also admit and regulate the amount of air flowing to the pipes that are needed to equalize pressure thereby allowing the proper flow of water.  Every fixture in your bathroom and kitchen is required to have an internal or external trap and an attached vent, the top of which is vented through the roof in what is referred to as a  vent stack.  So when the stack gets clogged, this will affect the ability of the wastewater and gasses from being able to exit the building.

Santa Claus isn’t the only thing that likes to climb down chimneys.

The vent stack is the diminutive plastic or metal chimney sticking out of your roof. Aside from being a necessity to the smooth functioning of your plumbing it is also a magnet to critters, some of which climb into it never to be heard from again.  To reach it you will need a ladder since it resides on your roof.  To start the process put a flashlight and pair of gloves into your pockets, securely position the ladder against the side of the house and tote a garden hose and drain tape up to the roof. (Always exercise caution when climbing up and down any ladder.)  Locate the plumbing stack and use the flashlight to peer into it for obvious signs of blockages, such as leaves or a nest.  If you see any that you can reach, put on your gloves and clear as much of the stack as you can by hand.  It is possible that whatever is gumming up the works could be but a few inches from the top, in which case clearing the clog could be over and done within a matter of seconds.

However if whatever or whoever managed to worm its way deeper down the stack, you will need to deploy the drain tape to get at the clog.  Inserting the augur end of the tape, thread it down the stack in order to break up the clog or latch onto any debris that may have lodged down there.  Pull the tape back up the stack from time to time in order to remove as much of the offending material as you can fish out. 

Once you removed as much of the debris as possible and/or broken through the clog then you need to feed the hose down the stack as far as it will go and turn on the flow.  You will know you have succeeded if the water runs down the drain.  If it shoots skyward, then this indicates that the stack is still blocked.  Repeat the process until the water runs down the stack with a whoosh.

One way to deter the stack from becoming blocked is to install a vent cap.  These devices are simple to install and will substantially reduce or even eliminate the accumulation of leaf litter and unwanted pests that like to call your vent stack home.  Just make sure that the cap you choose isn’t constructed from lead, since squirrels seem to like the taste of the metal and will gnaw holes in the cap.  Vent caps can be found online or at many hardware stores and big box home remodeling centers.

While you’re up on the roof it wouldn't hurt to also check to make sure that the flashing around

 the stack isn’t cracked or damaged, since this will cause water to leak into your home the next time it rains, potentially causing even damage than a simple clog.  You can buy replacements at the hardware store as well.  With a little foresight and an occasional trip to the roof, you can keep these critter gitters from becoming an unpleasant but necessary DIY project.

Billy Aldridge is one of the Doctors of Plumbology at Aldridge and Sons Plumbing in Jacksonville, Florida.  For more helpful hints and handy DIY videos go to http://plumbers-jacksonville-fl.com

Time for Those Summertime Honey Dos

By Billy Aldridge

The heat is on in North Florida in July and August.  We’re talking flame broil here, with temperatures in the nineties most days.  That means that most of us guys are busy crowding the golf course at first light or lighting out before sunrise with rod and reel in hand.  Anything to avoid the heat of the day.  Of course on weekends this means spending way too much time indoors with nothing for your significant other to look at but you.  And you know what that inevitably leads to: The dreaded honey dos.  So to help you keep the peace at home during the dog days of summer, I have pulled together some simple plumbing DIY projects that can not only save you money, but also keep you off the wife’s radar.  You’ll thank me later.

      1.      Exercising Your Cutoff Valves – There are actually two types of cutoff valves in your home.  The first is the cutoff for the entire house and the second are the valves behind every sink, toilet, washing machine and dishwasher, as well as the ones atop the water heater.  The ones inside the home need to be exercised from time to time to keep them from jamming when you need them.  It’s a good idea to turn them on and off every couple of months to keep them in proper working order.  To do this you need to support the valve with one hand while turning the cutoff off and then back on.  If the valve is hard to turn or will not turn at all, do not attempt to use brute force, since this can break off the valve.  Simply grab a can of WD-40 or some other lubricant and give the valve a spritz.  Then wait for at least thirty minutes before trying to turn the valve once more.  If it still stubbornly refuses to budge you can have someone support the valve with their hand while you gently apply a wrench to try and free it. (And I stress gently.)  If that fails to do the trick you will need to have the valve replaced by a plumber.

      2.      Is your toilet a water hog? Utility bills being what they are, the last thing you want to do is donate any more of your hard earned money to the utility company. Since the toilet can be one of the thirstiest water hogs in the house, you need to be aware of the fact that if the system has a leak or the flapper is old and out of shape, then you are wasting water and with it your money.  There are two ways of detecting for leaks: by sight and by sound.  The way to see if your toilet is not sealing properly is to grab some food coloring from the kitchen and put a few drops into the toilet.  Do not flush it, rather walk away for ten minutes or so and then return to see if the water is clear.  If it is still tinted, then you don’t have a leak.  The other way is to flush the toilet, let it refill and then stand there for a few minutes to hear whether the water runs intermittently, indicating a poorly seated flapper.  Changing a toilet flapper is one of the simplest DIYs in the plumbing trade.  Below is a video designed to take you step-by-step through the entire process.

      3.      The Thing in the bathtub – It’s big, it’s hairy and it lives in your bathtub drain.  It likes nothing better than to hunker down and slow the water attempting to flow down the drain to a crawl. It will stop the flow altogether given half a chance.  While this bathroom menace might be gross, it’s also fairly easy to tame.  Due to the architecture of the standard bathroom drain, it has a propensity to gather and trap hair and soap into a ball that slowly but surely impedes the flow of water.  If you have noticed lately that it seems to take forever for the tub to empty after a bath or shower do not panic.  Most likely the trap just needs to be cleaned.

To accomplish this you will need a pair of needle nose pliers.  Start by removing the drain cover.  (See the video below for more details.) Once you have used the pliers to unscrew the cover, turn it over and clean it since it tends to be a collection point for gunk.  Then lay it to one side.  Next you should use the needle nose pliers to reach down the drain to fish out the hairball that has been causing the clog.  Throw the hairball away and with the cover removed, run the water to make sure that the drain is now clear.  Reassemble and go have a beer, you’ve earned it big guy.

Billy Aldridge is one of the Doctors of Plumbology at Aldridge & Sons Plumbing in Jacksonville, Florida.  For even more helpful plumbing tips and helpful DIY videos, visit http://plumbers-jacksonville-fl.com

Do You Know What Lives Behind Your Walls?

By Billy Aldridge

Unless there is a water stain on the sheet rock most people do not even consider what lurks behind their walls.  That’s a shame, since if your house is more than twenty years old there can be any number of nasty 

Cast Iron and copper DWV (Drain, Waste and Vent) Piping in a Timber Residential Building in Mission, British Columbia, Canada in the 1980s. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

things that can happen with old pipes that can cost you way more than a simple repair if they should either leak or burst.  While a burst pipe can get your attention fast, slow leaks can cause as much or more damage if left unchecked, since these can cause mold. Of course, just because your house was built before 1960 doesn’t mean that the pipes are the ones originally installed when the house was built.  To find out what’s living behind your walls you need to remove an access panel or two in order to do a little detective work.

Sherlock Homes to the Rescue

Homes built during the twenties and thirties were fitted out with galvanized pipes, which are easy to detect since they are battleship gray and have knobby joints.  If you detect these lines in your walls, you need to look for corrosion, since steel rusts.  You also need to test for flow since galvanized pipes tend to rust from the inside out.  To do this, turn on the taps one at a time, since the hot water side tends to rust faster than the cold water side.  If the flow for one side seems slower than the other, this is a sure sign of internal corrosion slowly but surely  clogging the pipe.

If your house was built in the 1950’s then your pipes could very well be copper.  This is good and bad.  It’s good because copper pipes practically last forever, since they are highly resistant to corrosion.  It’s bad, because copper is very expensive to repair.  In fact it’s so expensive that it isn’t unusual for houses with copper piping to have the pipes stolen if left vacant for any length of time.

Newer homes on the other hand have plastic pipes that never rust, are easy to install and repair and are even color coordinated (red for hot water and blue for cold).  It’s still a good idea to eyeball these at least once per year since they tend to leak at the joints and connections when they do leak.   

Speaking of connections, the larger pipes that carry the water from your drains, sinks, tubs, dishwasher and 

English: Under Slab Leak Repair (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

washing machine also bear scrutiny.  These are known in the industry as waste pipes, and they live beneath your home.  Homes built before 1970 typically have cast iron pipes which people back then thought would last forever.  Since iron like steel rusts, these waste pipes tend to get rough with age which can start to restrict the flow.  They also tend to get what are known as pit holes that can slowly but surely bore completely through the pipe until they begin to leak.  Repairing these pipes can be expensive, since cast iron waste pipes are heavy and difficult to work with.

If your home was built in the 70’s, then PVC waste pipes came into vogue.  Since these plastic pipes are much lighter than cast iron, they are much easier to repair.  Since plastic never rusts, they are also much more reliable and less likely to clog.  The only downside is that roots can find egress into these pipes through even the tiniest of crack which is why you need to contact a plumbing professional if water seems slow to drain or starts to back up.  Particularly here in Florida where afternoon gulley washers are the norm, the last thing you want to do is let your waste pipes clog before a major storm comes to call.  Then you’ll really find out what lives behind your walls, since flooding almost always requires the removal of water damaged sheetrock. 

Billy Aldridge is one of the Doctors of Plumbology with Aldridge and Sons Plumbing.  For mor helpful tips and how-to videos visit http://plumbers-jacksonville-fl.com

Is Your Toilet Getting You In Hot Water?

Four-inch cast-iron plumbing pipes (and at lower left center the three-inch down-pipe from a toilet) in the basement ceiling of a Seattle home. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Billy Aldridge

A number of years ago I lived in a house built in the 1950’s.  While there is a certain amount of charm to 

older structures, the one thing that was less than charming was the plumbing, which had not been upgraded since it was originally installed back in 1954.  So there were a number of things that needed to be dealt with in order to bring the plumbing in the house up to snuff.  The first thing was the toilet, which wasted water with every flush.  Back in the 50’s it was common for toilets to use as much as 7 gallons per flush.  By 2001 when I bought the house, the norm on water usage had been halved.  So the first thing I did was replace the toilet.

However, the toilet in this particular house did something else that quickly got on our nerves.  Every time someone was in the shower, a toilet flush was usually accompanied by a scream as the water temperature in the shower rocketed upward along with the shower’s occupant as the cold water was usurped by the commode.   While newer homes come equipped with a thermostatic mixing valve that prevents this from happening, many older homes can still deliver a jolt to anyone taking a shower whenever a toilet is flushed.

The reason for this is due to the fact that household plumbing is based on the trunk and branch system where a large bore pipe runs the length of the home and smaller pipes branch off to the various rooms, such as the bathrooms, kitchen, laundry room and garage.  Since the system relies on supply and demand, whenever a tap is opened, a toilet is flushed, the dishwasher or the washing machine is running, this effects the amount of water available to the remainder of the system.  

If the water coming out of the shower and taps fluctuates wildly whenever the toilet is flushed, the solution is to either:

      1.      Installa Thermostatic Mixing Valve – If you are a capable DIYer who has experience at soldering and is not averse to complying with local building codes, the steps necessary to install one can be gleaned by going to eHow.com .  Thermostatic Mixing Valves attach to both the cold and hot water lines in order to keep water temperature coming out of the tap at safe levels.   Since water temperatures of 120 degrees or more can cause scalding, these valves are one way to maintain safe temperatures at the tap.  

Toilet water shutoff valve, used to cut off the flow of water into the tank when repairs/maintenance need to be conducted. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

      2.      If the toilet is the chief culprit, the other way to deal with the problem is to simply close the supply valve 

      partially.  This will mean that the toilet fills more slowly, but it could also keep anyone in the shower from getting scalded when the toilet is flushed.  To tighten the valve, you will need to support the supply line that comes out of the wall with one hand while tightening the shutoff valve ever so carefully with the other.  The last thing you want to do is break off the shutoff valve and cause a flood.  Warning: If your home is more than 20 years old, it is quite possible that the shutoff valves will be locked tight.  If this is the case, you can attempt to replace the valve yourself as demonstrated at FamilyHandyman.com.  

   

      The other option is to call a licensed and bonded plumbing professional.  While it will cost you a few dollars to hire a pro, you can rest assured that the job will get done right the first time, which will not only save you money on your utility bill, but it will most definitely keep you out of hot water.

Billy Aldridge is one of the Doctors of Plumbology at Aldridge and Sons Plumbing in Jacksonville, Florida.  For more helpful hints and how-to videos, visit their site at http://plumbers-jacksonville-fl.com