Plumbing Blog

ijrj4 asked:


Our new home is 16 months old. In the 2 toilets we noticed a slight “dirt trail” into the bowl from the holes under the rim. It appears that the couple of areas in the bowl are getting “dirtier”. We scrub the toilets 2x a week. There is no dirt in the bottom of the tank. Our faucet filters are clean. We can’t see any sediment in our white tub either! We had a soft water system installed just after we moved in. Two doors away a new home has been under constuction the last 10 months. Could that have stirred up sediment in the water pipes? We live in a rural area and the water is supplied by the county. Wouldn’t the water softener system filter the sediment? We live in Florida. Could it be mold inside the rim? We greatly appreciate any advice. Thank you. Jan

yarbrough asked:


Well suplied…40 ft. well…15 ft. from house…3/4 copper feed …pressure tank…copper plumbing in 1story house…40 psi now but would like to boost another 20. Any simple build it yourself ideas? Pump system is a simple on -off wired direct to pressure switch. The pressure is as high as it will go against the head of what this pump will put out. There is no box with an adjustment at the pump.

Anon e Mouse asked:


All the plumbing in the ranch-style house is on ONE common wall. The floor seems to be wet along the baseboards, especially in the bathroom. This is NOT a Do-It-YourSelf job for me. What kind of prices should I expect to pay for getting this fixed ?

SoulSearcher asked:


I live in a townhouse built in the 1940’s. My bathroom was remodeled three years ago (some of its plumbing included) and is located upstairs. The issue is that there is a clog in the line, seemingly between my bathroom sink and the bathtub drain line.

A few months ago, the sink was draining slowly. I removed the sink stopper and cleaned some gunk away, but slow draining persisted. I removed the “pee trap” (the U-shaped dip in the pipe just under the sink drain) and cleaned out a bunch of debris out from that. I thought that surely this would do it, but not so. I filled the sink with water hoping to push the clog through with the large water volume, to no (immediate) avail. I continued using the sink, thinking I’d call a plumber soon. Over the course of a day, the sink suddenly began draining normally. I thought the clog had gone for good, but no.

Recently, the sink started draining slowly again. I decided to fill it with water and use a plunger to loosen the clog. When I began plunging, I heard a release in the pipe and the water began draining normally. Yippee! Wait… a bunch of water and nasty black debris just backed up into my tub through the bathtub drain!

Now I have a sink that drains just fine, but a bathtub full of muck with a totally clogged drain. I tried plunging the bathtub drain, but nothing is budging. I really don’t want to call a plumber unless I absolutely HAVE to, so if anyone out there can tell me a do-it-yourself solution to this problem, I’d be so grateful! I hate it when they come out and spend five minutes fixing it by doing something totally simple that I could have done myself. Thanks!
I’m on sewer, not septic. My sink and bathtub both lack overflow holes, but the tub does have an internal plug operated by the up-down switch thing.

New advice?