Almost more fun than should be allowed by law...
This has been a week of plumbing issues. Fortunately, I've got a great landlord, who will let me do a lot of home repairs myself, since I can do them (and it saves him money since he doesn't have to get a plumber, electrician, or contractor to do them - all he has to do is pay for parts) - and, more importantly, I know what I can't do and when we need to call in an expert.
Background information: the house was built in the early to mid 1980s, and has no basement - it's on a slab. This makes access to the plumbing 'interesting'.
First was the outside valve on the back of the house - one of those 'frost-proof' units, with the valve seat 10" inside the wall (where it will theoretically stay warm during the winter). This valve is in the wall between the kitchen and the front bathroom, and it needed to be replaced (the seat had gotten all messed up somehow, and it got to the point that you could get one good, leak-free closing out of a replacement washer - then it would leak again). Now, most of these valves screw in to the house plumbing deep inside the wall, but when I tried to turn this one, it just spun around without doing anything. I was afraid that I would need to remove a couple of rows of tile from the tub surround to get in there (either that, or remove a lot of kitchen cabinets, which I *really* didn't want to do), but when I removed the cover plate over the tub mixing valve handle, there was enough of a hole in the wall to actually be able to see what was going on. There was a collection of adapters and fittings between the valve and the copper pipe that would make Rube Goldberg smile - but, more importantly, I saw that there was no drywall on the other side of the wall cavity (behind the kitchen cabinets). Cutting a hole in the back of one of the cabinets would get me access to the plumbing - yea! (And, when I cleared out that cabinet, I found that some previous owner had already done that, and left a removable panel there for easy access.)
My landlord came over and looked at it with me, and we went over to Menards to pick up the replacement parts we would need. It was interesting (to say the least) to get in to the plumbing, but with some contortion I managed it and got the valve replaced (and got rid of quite a few of the adapters, nipples, and couplers that someone had used earlier).
Then, the water heater tank sprung a leak. (Not real surprising, since both my landlord and I believed that it had been in there for 20+ years.) Of course, the water heater is in a utility closet just off the living room, next to the furnace and behind the brine tank of the water softener, so getting to it was also an adventure.
In the last day or so, I learned more about water heaters than I ever wanted to, including which brands are good and which are total crap. The best rated are made by Bradford White, but you can only get them through a plumber or plumbing supply store (and you will pay an extra $100 just for the name). Rheem water heaters are almost as highly rated, and you can get them in most of the big-box home repair stores. (Rheem makes water heaters under their own name, as well as under the brand names of GE, Marathon, and Richmond.) Avoid water heaters made by AO Smith (Sears/Kenmore, Whirlpool, and a host of really cheap 'store brand' water heaters).
So, today my landlord goes over to the local Home Despot and picks up a 50 gallon GE natural gas water heater. Turns out it is an almost perfect physical match for the 20 year old Richmond that it was replacing. It took about 2 or 3 hours for us to make the swap (a lot of which was spent waiting for the old tank to drain), but we got it in! And it produces copious amounts of scalding hot water; Boo-yah! (And he probably saved between $500 and $1000 on labor, which is another win!)
Background information: the house was built in the early to mid 1980s, and has no basement - it's on a slab. This makes access to the plumbing 'interesting'.
First was the outside valve on the back of the house - one of those 'frost-proof' units, with the valve seat 10" inside the wall (where it will theoretically stay warm during the winter). This valve is in the wall between the kitchen and the front bathroom, and it needed to be replaced (the seat had gotten all messed up somehow, and it got to the point that you could get one good, leak-free closing out of a replacement washer - then it would leak again). Now, most of these valves screw in to the house plumbing deep inside the wall, but when I tried to turn this one, it just spun around without doing anything. I was afraid that I would need to remove a couple of rows of tile from the tub surround to get in there (either that, or remove a lot of kitchen cabinets, which I *really* didn't want to do), but when I removed the cover plate over the tub mixing valve handle, there was enough of a hole in the wall to actually be able to see what was going on. There was a collection of adapters and fittings between the valve and the copper pipe that would make Rube Goldberg smile - but, more importantly, I saw that there was no drywall on the other side of the wall cavity (behind the kitchen cabinets). Cutting a hole in the back of one of the cabinets would get me access to the plumbing - yea! (And, when I cleared out that cabinet, I found that some previous owner had already done that, and left a removable panel there for easy access.)
My landlord came over and looked at it with me, and we went over to Menards to pick up the replacement parts we would need. It was interesting (to say the least) to get in to the plumbing, but with some contortion I managed it and got the valve replaced (and got rid of quite a few of the adapters, nipples, and couplers that someone had used earlier).
Then, the water heater tank sprung a leak. (Not real surprising, since both my landlord and I believed that it had been in there for 20+ years.) Of course, the water heater is in a utility closet just off the living room, next to the furnace and behind the brine tank of the water softener, so getting to it was also an adventure.
In the last day or so, I learned more about water heaters than I ever wanted to, including which brands are good and which are total crap. The best rated are made by Bradford White, but you can only get them through a plumber or plumbing supply store (and you will pay an extra $100 just for the name). Rheem water heaters are almost as highly rated, and you can get them in most of the big-box home repair stores. (Rheem makes water heaters under their own name, as well as under the brand names of GE, Marathon, and Richmond.) Avoid water heaters made by AO Smith (Sears/Kenmore, Whirlpool, and a host of really cheap 'store brand' water heaters).
So, today my landlord goes over to the local Home Despot and picks up a 50 gallon GE natural gas water heater. Turns out it is an almost perfect physical match for the 20 year old Richmond that it was replacing. It took about 2 or 3 hours for us to make the swap (a lot of which was spent waiting for the old tank to drain), but we got it in! And it produces copious amounts of scalding hot water; Boo-yah! (And he probably saved between $500 and $1000 on labor, which is another win!)