Cottage and Yard

I have previously re-plumbed some of the drain piping in our cottage because it needed to be done since we moved the kitchen sink and added a washer and dryer on the first floor.

I believe the original plumbing work must have been done by Hap Hazard and his crew of mindless misfits from the “Glue Not Included” plumbing company where their motto is ” We always fix our mistakes no matter how much it costs you.”
I say this because as I was removing the long drain run from the kitchen sink to the septic tank pipe earlier this year I found that one of the PVC pipe joints had never been glued. As I removed the section of pipe with that joint it just fell apart.

Today, what was a tiny drippy leak in the shower drain line (this was scheduled to be redone this winter) became a torrent. Luckily I was in the basement at the time and heard the unfamiliar splashing sound while a shower was being taken. Again luckily there is a floor drain near the leak in question so no damage was done but why was it suddenly gushing water.

Upon closer inspection I found the joint at which the shower drain enters a wye above the septic outlet pipe was loose, as was the other pipe that enters the other leg of that wye….. a little jiggle and the joints came apart……..they too had never been glued………and the pipes only went about a quarter inch into the fitting!!!!!!

How this had stayed together for all these years I’ll never know? It sometimes amazes me how long it can take for poor workmanship to show up.

I didn’t have the parts on hand to re-plumb it the way it should be done so I cleaned and primed the connecting ends as best I could then applied the glue and pushed the joints together as far as they would go. Amazing!! With glue included they don’t even leak a little bit any more.

Originally posted: August 23rd, 2007

Well gardening is taking a back-seat for a few days while I work on our drain system. In a past post I told of how we first saw (only slightly) and bought our current home. It was bought “as-is”. And it has had a few flaws that I have had to take care of , along with some needed and previously neglected maintenance we have had to do. The place was supposed to have been winterized. They must have expected a very warm winter! Needless to say the water pipes had not been drained and we found that out the hard way. There are no pipes inside the walls so at least everything is exposed.
I gave the copper piping a cursory inspection and did find a couple of places where it was split so I fixed those. At least the pump tank had been drained and the pump worked so once the tank was up to pressure I opened the valve to the rest of the system. That’s when I found out you miss a lot of splits when inspecting in a darkened basement. One bulb in the middle of the ceiling was all there was. The remaining splits were mostly in pipes along the concrete block walls and the splits faced the wall. After I shut the valve off I began a much more through inspection. The next time I opened the valve there were only a couple I had still missed. I would have probably been better off to replace most of the water lines rather than putting in numerous short sections to replace the split portions but my objective was to get the water running since we were currently living in the house. Our possessions except those needed for our daily existence were almost all neatly boxed and stacked in the garage. Thank heaven for that big empty watertight garage.
Once the water was running and we could take showers etc. The panic ceased.
The washer and dryer appeared to have been located in the basement but we wanted them on the main floor. With little extra floor space in a small house we decided to put them in the kitchen. BUT WHERE? I did not want to plumb everything just to have us decide they were not in the right spot. So we put them where we thought they should go and I ran two garden hoses from the hot and cold water spigots in the basement. The drain from the washer went into a large plastic garbage can that was emptied with buckets. The matching gas dryer was just set in place without a gas connection or an exhaust vent. We just imagined what it would be like to use it where it was. It was spring and we were hanging our laundry out to dry anyway.
Needless to say where they were put was not where they stayed. We finally decided that they would be much more convenient and less in the way if they were placed where the kitchen sink was and the sink moved over a few feet.  We tried that for a while with the same garden hose water system and garbage can and bucket drain. It was a good position and the decision was made. I have in the interim replaced the ½ inch copper tubing that ran a circuitous route from pressure tank to vanity to outside spigot to basement laundry spigots to shower to kitchen sink following as closely as possible against the concrete block wall of the basement. Why would you run water lines against the coldest surface in the house where they would freeze the quickest if the furnace failed? I rerouted both hot and cold lines down the middle of the basement using ¾ inch tubing with ½ inch branch lines running to the various fixtures. Now turning on the cold water in the kitchen will not cause a running shower to become scalding hot.
Now back to that drain system. At least it had not been broken from freezing water. It had in it, however, a flexible fitting which was installed at such a poor alignment that the short rubber hose section was twisted shut. No water passed through it to the septic tank pipe from the vanity or sink which were connected to it. There was, however, another drain line from the shower that connected to a different inlet of the septic tank pipe. This shower drain line was well above the level of the sink and vanity drains but was connected to them also above the previously mentioned collapsed flexible fitting. The drain water from the vanity and sink therefore needed to flow up and over into the shower drain line thus keeping all of the lower drain pipe lines full of water all the time. How do people manage to do these things that for some strange reason continue to work just well enough to get by.

That’s enough for now I’m getting exhausted just thinking about it again. I’ll tell you the rest of the story in another post.

Originally posted: May 9th, 2007

There may be no need to replace that old window.

What do you do if you have an old style window that has an outside sill with the density of a dry sponge and looks like Swiss cheese.

Rip it out and replace it with a new expensive replacement unit?

It may not look the same as the other windows. It will be expensive. You will probably end up reworking the outdoor siding around it and repairing the inside wall as well. Also, those old windows don’t just pop out with a twist of the wrist. Putting in a replacement window could turn out to be a small part off the work required to repair the damage done just removing that old window.

But wait is the window broken, does it not work properly does it really need to be replaced or is it just some rotted wood that is the problem?

I discovered a product years ago that can make this wood repair a simple project with a lot less work and expense.

This stuff can repair almost any deteriorated wood, usually at a fraction of the cost of replacement, if replacement is even possible.

It is a combination of two, two-part epoxy products.

There are other two-part epoxy wood filler pastes available but it is the liquid epoxy part of this combination that really makes the difference.

The first time I used this product was over twenty years ago. I had, at that time, purchased an older home. While remodeling the bathroom I found a soft spot in the subfloor right along the edge of the bath tub. This tub was a big heavy fitted in place cast iron beauty. Water had been leaking under an area of poorly caulked linoleum for quite some time. My problem was that putting down ceramic tile over this soft rot spot would only lead to more trouble later on. I did not want to tear up the floor. I did some research and fond a product that was being used for the reconstruction of all sorts of historical wooden items.

At that time, if memory serves, I purchased a 5 pint kit for about $50.00 ( 1 pint each of the two parts of the liquid epoxy, 1 pint of a solvent/thinner, and one pint each of the two parts of the solid epoxy paste.)

I mixed up a batch of the liquid epoxy and added a little thinner, per the instructions, to make it flow better when poured onto that soft spot. It was absorbed in a few seconds and the wood looked wet. The manufacturer recommended that you apply additional quantities until the soft spot appeared saturated. I did it once more and saw that it took some time for the liquid to sink in. It then had a much shinier, smoother surface than before.

The next morning I checked the area that I had treated. To my great surprise and relief, that section of the floor was hard as a rock. It was harder than the untreated surface of the solid flooring.

I then mixed up a batch of the solid epoxy paste and used it to smooth out the indented surface of the treated area.

A couple of days later the tile was laid. Ten years later we sold the house. We never had a problem with that part of the floor.

Now to the more recent past. Three years ago we moved into our current home. It had a few problem areas when we bought it, but we bought it anyway.

One of the problems was that previously mentioned rotted wood window. I’m not sure why this one window took such a beating when the rest of them were in good shape.

I again ordered a 5 pint kit of that wood epoxy. This time the cost was $70.00 plus shipping. I proceeded to start the repair of the rotted exterior window sill, only this time the wood was so rotted and full of holes that it was only a little paint left on it that held it together. This was not going to be a simple, pour it on, let it soak in, and wait for it to harden, situation. First of all, most of anything that I would pour on would have dripped right out the holes in the bottom of the sill.

Day one: I began by gently painting a thinned batch of the liquid epoxy onto any surface strong enough not to be knocked off by the tiny artist paint brush that I was using.  I made up several small batches and worked slowly.

Day two: It didn’t  look much different but the wood was much sturdier and I could paint on bigger quantities of the liquid epoxy still using that same little brush.

Day three: I painted on a batch of liquid that was not thinned and used a bigger brush. As I worked I saw the surfaces starting to become shinier and I knew they were becoming saturated.

Day four: I made up a batch of the solid epoxy and pushed it into the deepest cavities as best I could. I left the surfaces rough so that the subsequent layer I would apply would have something to better adhere to.

The instructions said it was better to apply thinner layers of this material than to try to fill the entire cavity in one shot. And since some places were well over an inch deep I applied several layers. Also where the cavity was deep I was able to insert some small pieces of wood between the layers of epoxy. This helped to use less of the paste epoxy and reduce the number of layers that needed to be applied.

Days five, six, and seven: I applied the additional layers of epoxy paste and the chunks off wood.

Day eight: I sanded the surface smooth and applied a coat of primer

I know this sounds like it took a long time. It did take about a week until the final layer was sanded smooth. The epoxy applications took 30 minutes or less each day. The sanding and priming took a little longer. I’d say an hour and a half. So, seven days at 30 minutes a day and another hour and a half for the sanding, that’s 5 hours total.

I know it would take longer than that to replace the window and certainly cost a lot more. I only used about half of the paste epoxy purchased and less than a quarter of the liquid components so I have plenty left for any other repair jobs I may need to do.

After three years the sill looks as good as the day I finished the job and painted it.

These great products are LiquidWood and WoodEpox available from Abatron, Inc. They can be found at www.abatron.com

Originally posted: October 26th, 2006.

Do you have Flushaphobia?-The inordinate fear of flushing your toilet because of repeated blockages and consequent overflows.

I no longer live in fear of flushing my toilet, but I did.

I know there must to be more people living out there now as I did then. They spend more time plunging out blockages and mopping up overflows than they spend using their toilet. I hope this information will help them as much as it has helped me.

It all started when we purchased a house that was a fixer-upper with a toilet that was not a flusher-downer but an over-flower. It was old. It was gross. It was ugly. It was just a regular toilet, but I could live with that. Those things did not disrupt my life.

It was the callouses forming on my hands from the regular plunging, and the aches in my back from mopping up the inevitable gallons of water that overflowed after that second flush. (You know the one, the one after you think the plunging has worked, but in truth, it has not. It has just driven the waste deeper into hiding in the toilet. This was happening to me with great regularity every second or third use. This ritual was getting old fast.

I tried to reduce the amount of water in the tank to stop the flooding, but then none of the waste would go down.

Yes, this was the time that I lived in fear of the flush.

Liquid waste was no problem. I could put buckets of water down the toilet when there was no solid waste. The plumbing took all I could give it without a complaint. The problem had to be the toilet. The solids of any significant size (usually mine) were not making it through.

The only solution I could think of was to get a new toilet, not because mine was old, ugly, or gross, but because it was more work than it was worth. It was not doing the job.

I occasionally had similar problems with toilets in other houses. Why?

After a little research, I found out why. In America the typical toilet is one of two types, either a siphon or a siphon jet.

There is no need to get into the intricacies of the differences between the two because it makes little difference, neither one does the job.

These toilet designs make use of many gallons of water per flush. The waste follows a torturous route through a narrow trap in order to exit the bowl. They use a siphon action, some with an added jet, to get it done. This siphon action was described as a method by which the flowing water pulled the waste from the bowl. The concept of pulling solids with a liquid sounded a bit peculiar to me, so if someone had set out to design the most difficult and inefficient way to get the job done, this appears to be it.

That old toilet of mine used somewhere between 5 and 7 gallons of water per flush and rarely did a good job removing the solids. But, hey, to compensate for that, it used the same huge amount of water to get rid of a few ounces of liquid waste without fail.

The worst thing about that exit route is the diameter, typically between 2 and 2 1/8 inches. Sure, that should pass waste nearly the diameter of a tennis ball with no problem, but when was the last time you had a bowl movement of that size and shape? Never, I hope, and, if you did, you have my sympathy.

But what about a movement the size of a golf ball (1 5/8 inches)? That is doable, and should be easily evacuated by the toilet with a single swooshing flush…. BUT WAIT…let’s be real here and tape three or four golf balls together in a row. Then, as this long lump is having a problem navigating the tight turns of the trapway (now there is an appropriate name), we will help it along with a couple fists full of toilet paper trying to get out at the same time! (Sorry, but I’m not a dainty three sheeter, and that ever newer, ever softer toilet paper just forces me to use ever more of it, but that’s another subject.)

…OK LOG JAM…

That rapidly swirling, flushing water has become a placid little pond. Time to plunge and plunge and plunge…Okay, it looks like it’s been passed (but unknown to you, you’ve just cleared the bowl and half of the blockage)…. Now a flush to clear the pipes …uh oh uh oh uh oh!

You hurry and twist that old filler valve closed for all you’re worth, but it’s TOO LATE. The water is coming in faster than it’s going out and over the top it comes, so …..GRAAAAAAB the mop.

I need a replacement. The new toilets are water conserving, 1.6 gallons per flush, toilets. Now the situation has become even worse. How can you get the waste out of basically the same toilet using less water? The easy fix is to make the trapway channel even narrower.

But wait, won’t that make it even harder for the solids to exit the bowl than before? Yes!! And what is the solution to this? AHA!!! Reduce the size of the waste. That part of the solution is left up to the user, and I don’t think that is an option for me. I mean, how?……I’m not even going to think about that one.

After many hours of research into the form and function of the toilet I feel I can speak as somewhat of an authority.

I found the solution to the problem. I found it down under (in Australia that is).
They seem to be a little less rigid about the way human waste should be expelled from the toilet. You might say they were thinking outside the bowl.
(Well, OK, it sounded funnier when I first thought of it, but with the 12 seconds of effort I put into coming up that line, it stays.)

They solved the problem by using a method called wash down. They coupled this with a much less arduous exit path having a much larger diameter, thereby, overcoming three major problems. This toilet, I found, can expel much more, as well as larger pieces, of solid waste using only 1.6 gallons of water per flush. It also has the option of an alternate flush using only 0.8 gallons of water to expel liquid waste.

I wanted one, I needed one, but alas, I could only get one from a distributor 100 miles away. Even though the model I wanted had a plastic rather than porcaline water tank, it was still heavy to ship adding significantly to its $400.00 dollar price tag.

The price was a lot more than a cheap $89.00 unit I could get at the local big box store, but it had a much better chance of actually working.

I did more searching on the web, and I contacted several local hardware suppliers. Finally I found just what I wanted. It was less than twenty miles away and on clearance for $137.00. It had sat on the sales floor for months. Nobody had wanted it because it was different.

Who says miracles can’t happen?

And now, it gets even better. I was concerned about the installation of a foreign toilet, but it was literally no problem…even easier than a domestic toilet.

There was no lifting the whole toilet up and trying to place it on those elusive hold down bolts just to have one or both holes miss their bolts. You just can’t see both holes or bolts at once. I know. I’ve installed several toilets. I used some of the tricks of the trade to get those bolts through, tying strings to them, jamming drinking straws over them (you need just the right size), holding them in place using some material from the wax seal (you never need nearly all of it anyway, well, almost never).

I found that with this installation, you simply bolt a small adapter to the pipe flange using the usual bolts (which you can see at all times) and a wax ring seal. Plop the toilet down on top of the adapter (it has it’s own internal O-ring seal), trace the outline of the base on the floor, then lift it off and lay a bead of RTV (bathtub caulk) within the outline. The toilet is then put back, and a couple of bolts are installed to hold it to the floor. I also put a nice bead of bathtub caulk where the base meets the floor. I just recently noticed that I never did put in those two floor bolts. I mean where is it going to go with 200++ pounds sitting on it. Think about it, what’s it gonna do, slip out from under me?

Sure, put the bolts in if it will make you feel better, but I’m the kind of guy that is better off not to do that extra step. I just know I’d give one of them that little extra turn just to make sure it was really tight and inevitably end up with a broken toilet. Okay, perhaps in earthquake prone areas you might need those bolts, but when was the last time someone was killed or injured during an earthquake in Michigan while sitting on the toilet?

I hooked the waterline back up, and I was in business. The connection on the tank was in the exact same place as the old one.

It was time to install the seat and lid (which are included with the purchase of the toilet). They mount by means of an adapter, too. This adapter is bolted onto the bowl just like American toilets, except, that now, the seat and lid can be easily removed for cleaning without removing those bolts. Slick!!!

We have been using this toilet for two years now. I have never seen another one installed or for sale anywhere. We have not had one single overflow. I have also found from experience, that most of the time, the 0.8 gallon flush will take care of all but the largest loads of solid waste.

I now keep the plunger in the garage only in case a neighbor needs to borrow it. I have not used it in over two years.

Why isn’t this toilet in every store and being installed everywhere? It’s more efficient than most, and it works!!

The price is higher, yes, but I would estimate from my own experience that a toilet has a life of at least 20 years. At $400.00, that’s $20.00 a year for this toilet compared to $5.00 a year for a standard cheap $100.00 toilet. But it works!!!

Skip a dinner out once a year, and you will have saved more than the difference in price. The time and energy saved not plunging and mopping up is worth a lot more.

Feel like a king when you flush this throne.

I am not affiliated, supported or compensated by any toilet manufacturer. I just found this toilet to be so much better than any other, I wanted people to know about it.

See more about this toilet and where you can get one at www.caromausa.com.

Caroma USA, Inc., Two Button Dual Flush Toilet Technology
They say:
Caroma set the standard by giving the world its first successful two button dual flush system in the nineteen eighties. In the nineties our research and development team responded with the remarkable 1.6 / 0.8 gallon two button dual flush system.
Proven through performance and acceptance by use in major hotels around the world, our award winning toilets are both user friendly and capable of saving up to 80% of your toilets previous annual water usage. Not only that, with a full 4″ trapway, blockages become a thing of the past.
http://www.caromausa.com

Here is a site on which Terry Love a plumber does reviews of consumer toilets. I was not aware of it when I did my research two years ago.

http://www.terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm

Originally posted: October 19th, 2006.

Honey what’s that smell? Why is the floor wet? What IS that smell??

As we entered our new home (newly purchased old home, that is) in early April of 2004 for the first time (we were never inside before we bought it), it was, well, not quite, what it appeared to be from my cursory initial inspection. The inspection had been done on a cold winter day in deep snow, at dusk, and only by looking in through the windows. The house probably seemed worse than it really was since there was no heat, electricity, or running water.

The house had stood empty for a year or more. Even in the below freezing weather, it smelled stale and musty. Then we opened the basement door and the smell was a lot worse.

I peered down into the semi darkness of the basement, except this time I was on the inside instead of the outside. The only light available was sneaking in through the partially snow covered windows. Two of the four even had glass in them.

I entered the cavern with a flashlight in hand. At least the basement was empty, not full of junk that we would have to haul out. The floor was filthy and wet (water was coming in somehow). The smell was less than appealing. If you have ever been in a wet underground cavern, or a place where they grow mushrooms, that might approach the level of humidity down there.

First we took care of the necessities, heat, lights, and running water. We had thrown out a house full of very old wall to wall carpeting. We had cleaned and washed the living area thoroughly. It was now time to tackle the basement problem, rather than just keeping the door tightly closed.

After hours and hours and hours of cleaning, scraping, and washing the floor, and walls, the basement was clean. The smell had lessened, but the real problem was still there. It was late April now and snow continued melting, but faster now. The water was entering the basement faster. It was seeping in at the joint between the floor and the walls.

The snow continued its seemingly everlasting melt as the water seeped in. I pondered the possible solutions to the problem. I had plenty of time to think while I was shoveling the mounds of snow away from the house. These “mounds” were formed when the snow slid off the metal roof. It was piled on the ground near the foundation. I thought the removal of the snow would help, and it did, but only a little.

While I shoveled I thought. Had the original builders even put in a foundation drainage system? If they did, had it become inoperable? Would I have to dig down to the foundation all around the house, and then put in a drain system, and, of course, a place for it to drain? I put this out of my mind immediately. This would probably cost more than the house was worth!!!!

I could live with the leakage into the basement as an inevitable occurrence. I could install a trough system all around the inside basement walls to contain the water and at least keep it from running across the floor. I could direct the seepage into the floor drain. We have a septic system so where does that floor drain go? I didn’t know then, and still don’t know now. This would not be as costly as the previous solution, but still a big job and still prone to future leaks.

As spring progressed, the snow finally melted enough that I could inspect the area around the foundation. Since the house has no eaves troughs, the roof run-off had made a trench near the foundation where water accumulated. Worse than that, in most places the ground around the house actually sloped down toward the foundation. This slope began about five feet out from the walls. From there, the ground then began sloping away from the house, so the house was basically surrounded by a shallow 5 ft trench that accumulated water and directed it to the foundation walls. This was not a good thing!

Here is the effective, low cost, solution I came up with:
I placed a five foot width of heavy black plastic out from the foundation to contain the water that accumulated in the shallow trench. I extend the ends out far enough to force the water to flow out and away from the house. The spring rains came and went. The basement floor slowly dried. Water seepage into the basement came to a stop. The foul smelling space became much less humid, and the smell began to dissipate. A used dehumidifier purchased at a garage sale also helped in the drying process and now runs whenever necessary to keep the humidity level down.
As time permits I will fill in around the foundation so that the ground slopes away and probably cover the black plastic with a layer of stones.

We painted all the surfaces we could: floor, walls, and ceiling. Now I sit here in my basement office writing this blog.

Originally posted: October 18th, 2006.