NurseDoe
Member
I love my 1950's ranch house, with the 1970's add-on of bedroom, family room and "bath" (5x6, including tub/shower!). In the past few months/days all the plumbing has started to break in one way or another. It has led to serious remodeling for do it yourselfers. We are getting really frustrated with the lack of really good do it yourself books. Most of them leave out very important information. For example, my daughter in law and I read the books on moving supply lines in the bathroom. The solder sections left out the part that you can't solder with water in the pipes. For two days we could not figure out why our horizontal pipes came out so well, but the two bottom pipes would never work out right! Duh!
We need a good book with PICTURES. Something like Plumbing for dummies with big color pictures for people who don't know simple things like where washers go. Pictures of tools, and of parts. The rest of this post is just general whining about the lack of good diy books for beginners.
I mean what the heck is a closet flange? I open the toliet box and it tells me that I need a closet flange. Many trips to Home Depot and Lowes, walking up and down the aisles, looking the closet flange section in the "repair toliet" section. Eventually, I found them in another section and they looked nothing like the chrome "flange" that covers up the holes in walls for the pipes. So, now I gather a flange isn't always a decoration. Sometimes it goes in floor. And you don't need one, if you already have a heavy cast iron one.
Now, we are wondering if there are plumbing gremlins/polterguist. I just wanted to replace an ugly 70's vanity with a pedestal sink, which led to the discovery that water supply lines we crossed like x's, and the drain/vent was @ a 45 degree angle etc. It ended ripping out all the wall and learning to run supply lines. So much time could be saved if there were books to explain the little things most people ( but apparently not us) already know. Which way does the washer go on? Which way do you wrap teflon tape? You can't keep reusing compression rings when you mess up. Which order do you assemble the p trap in a tight quarters? Can you join chrome and plastic parts? Why is plumbers tape, not tape at all? What a long time it took us to do simple things.
Just as my toliet and sink got working, the second bath/shower combo on the 1950's side began leaking OUTSIDE!. Water pressure low, and coming out the little "plumbing door" outside. So we tried replacing fixture handles, but it leaked even worse, with water pouring out of the shower/bath adjusting handle. We bought a whole new shower/tub fixture set up, which meant tearing out stucco.
We are in the middle of that, when bathroom #3 sink gets clogged, we undo the whole thing, expecting to find ABS drain pipe, but noooooo. Some strange not copper metal that complete disintegrated in her hands. It is not possible to get tools in that tight place so it looks like we have to tear out the sink and vanity and figure out how they did drain/vents in the 1950's.
And NOW the darn dishwasher is acting crazy! It makes loud vibrating noise when running. We thought it wasn't draining because sometimes we found water in the bottom after running it. BUT, today, I emptied the dishwasher, no water in the bottom. I began cleaning the kitchen, running disposal and poof, dirty water in the bottom of the dishwasher. No books tell us about that. None explain how the loops of the drain hose should be. the online diy sections say to check the position of the drain hose. But doesn't say what it should look like. My grandmothers dishwasher had an air vent in the sink. Mine doesn't. Why? WE need pictures!
We need a good book with PICTURES. Something like Plumbing for dummies with big color pictures for people who don't know simple things like where washers go. Pictures of tools, and of parts. The rest of this post is just general whining about the lack of good diy books for beginners.
I mean what the heck is a closet flange? I open the toliet box and it tells me that I need a closet flange. Many trips to Home Depot and Lowes, walking up and down the aisles, looking the closet flange section in the "repair toliet" section. Eventually, I found them in another section and they looked nothing like the chrome "flange" that covers up the holes in walls for the pipes. So, now I gather a flange isn't always a decoration. Sometimes it goes in floor. And you don't need one, if you already have a heavy cast iron one.
Now, we are wondering if there are plumbing gremlins/polterguist. I just wanted to replace an ugly 70's vanity with a pedestal sink, which led to the discovery that water supply lines we crossed like x's, and the drain/vent was @ a 45 degree angle etc. It ended ripping out all the wall and learning to run supply lines. So much time could be saved if there were books to explain the little things most people ( but apparently not us) already know. Which way does the washer go on? Which way do you wrap teflon tape? You can't keep reusing compression rings when you mess up. Which order do you assemble the p trap in a tight quarters? Can you join chrome and plastic parts? Why is plumbers tape, not tape at all? What a long time it took us to do simple things.
Just as my toliet and sink got working, the second bath/shower combo on the 1950's side began leaking OUTSIDE!. Water pressure low, and coming out the little "plumbing door" outside. So we tried replacing fixture handles, but it leaked even worse, with water pouring out of the shower/bath adjusting handle. We bought a whole new shower/tub fixture set up, which meant tearing out stucco.
We are in the middle of that, when bathroom #3 sink gets clogged, we undo the whole thing, expecting to find ABS drain pipe, but noooooo. Some strange not copper metal that complete disintegrated in her hands. It is not possible to get tools in that tight place so it looks like we have to tear out the sink and vanity and figure out how they did drain/vents in the 1950's.
And NOW the darn dishwasher is acting crazy! It makes loud vibrating noise when running. We thought it wasn't draining because sometimes we found water in the bottom after running it. BUT, today, I emptied the dishwasher, no water in the bottom. I began cleaning the kitchen, running disposal and poof, dirty water in the bottom of the dishwasher. No books tell us about that. None explain how the loops of the drain hose should be. the online diy sections say to check the position of the drain hose. But doesn't say what it should look like. My grandmothers dishwasher had an air vent in the sink. Mine doesn't. Why? WE need pictures!
