Plumbing

It's happened twice now. I figure I maybe didn't tighten it enough last time so I went a bit harder this time. Any idea if something else might be wrong? My complete amateur theory is that the hard water buildup is making everything stiff down there, so that rotating the faucet also rotates this piece.

Thanks for your help!

One of my shut off valve need to be replaced. It's a metal valve in a copper pipe.

A plumber proposed a solution, by adding plastic fittings on both ends of the valve.

The plumber said the finished project would be like this (from his previous job at another customer's). (see the fittings in blue circles).



I don't know a lot about plumbing code, so I'm seeking advice here. Is it a common practice to add plastic fittings like this?

I'm in Ontario, Canada. Thank you very much 😊

I have a grounding wire that is connected to a copper pipe in my house.

Originally, I imagine said copper pipe connected all of the way to the pipe which goes into the ground towards the well.

However, at some point, the previous home owners installed a filtration system and replace a lot of the copper with PVC pipe, so it goes Copper > PVC > Copper > Ground Wire

Is that ground wire still useful? Or do I need to extend it to where the original copper pipe extends into the ground towards the well?

Okay, this is going to be a bit long. First, the setup. We have a two tank system, but the second is unpowered and connected to both the main tank and our geothermal system. There was a recirc pump installed prior to us buying the house, but it failed and was melting so it's unpowered and still in place. The tank is downstairs at one end of the house, and our issues are occuring upstairs at the opposite end. We are on a well, and had a fair amount of sediment in our water. We installed a three stage whole house filter, but some sediment likely remains in the tank. We haven't seen any of the previous issues associated with the sediment, so I don't believe any new sediment is entering the house.

This started several months ago, and is weird (for me, anyway). The master bath is the farthest from the tank. A few months ago, the water in the shower spontaneously (or so I thought at the time) would only get lukewarm. The other upstairs shower, much closer to the water heater, still had spicy hot water. I thought it was the mixing valve in our shower handle, so I replaced it and everything was fine. This was right after the master tub was used, which is seldom used at all.

Another month or so goes by (after the tub was used again, still no 2+2 for me), and now the farthest faucets only get lukewarm water. The closer bathroom is fine, the kitchen (midway between upstairs bathroom #1 and the master) also has lukewarm water. I did some googling, and decided a back flush of the hot water lines was needed. I capped the sink in the master, did the back flush, hot water was restored.

Another month or so elapsed (the tub was used again), the lukewarm water returned, and now I'm starting to get suspicious about this damn tub. I flushed the tank, did yet another back flush of the lines, and hit water was restored. Then my wife used the hot water in the tub to clean it today, and the lukewarm water returned. She did not used enough to empty the tank and draw up more sediment (if that's the cause), so I don't think it's a partial blockage. Tonight when I was using the kitchen sink, the hot water was measuring at 95 degrees. On a hunch, I went and opened the hot tap on one of the master sinks. The water in the kitchen instantly jumped to 115. I turned the tap back off and the kitchen water dropped back to lukewarm.

I'm pulling my hair out over here. Somehow the usage of the master tub is throwing the upstairs water into a tizzy. We can't avoid using the tub, as its where our kids take baths. I would live to not have to keep capping the master shower and back flushing, although that has worked 100% of the time.

Any ideas from you experts? Is this something to do with the tub valve, or some weird pressure imbalance caused by using the tub?

I appreciate you taking the time to read through all this noise.

Edit 1: My wife used the master sink just now after I posted this (again, farther downstream than the kitchen) and the sink in there was plenty hot like it should be. So now I'm even more confused. When this happened before, the master faucets were the lowest temp as they're the farthest.

You can just see the top of the drain pipe sticking out to the left of the shadow.

The contractor that built this addition had a little decorative box there so I never saw this until now. It lasted through two winters with that little box and a bale of straw that was put there for unrelated reasons, but I feel like that was dumb luck.

What would you do? Keeping in mind a tear-out and replace is out of the question before spring now.

Thanks,

I live in a condo (40ish yo) and recently a neighbor in an adjacent building had a leak and the board suggested that everyone have a plumber come inspect their units. I just inspected and found various levels of corrosion at most joints with the included photo the worst looking of the bunch.

How concerning does this appear?

The nut broke off and had a small red ring/gasket between these connectors. I'm an noob but can follow instructions. Please give suggestions. Thanks

Below there is a water valve which may be used as an alternative if the above (cupper?) pipe is inconvenient to use.

Hi Plumbers,

I found that my water pressure from the utility is 100psi, code here is 80psi. So I got some quotes for a pressure reducer valve.

Every quote I got doesn't include an expansion tank. I have a large tank water heater with no expansion tank preinstalled, and the plumbers keep on coming back without including the expansion tank, then I come back and say it should get an expansion tank, and they come back offering to install one as well, but always with weird excuses like:

1. That's not really required for code, but we'll do it (yes it is!)
2. The water heater should've had one (no! only required when the pressure doesn't have anywhere to go... like back to the utility mains)!

What's going on here? Why are the pros doing that?

(local code: Seattle, WA, Cascadia)

The new aerator is 1.5gal/minute. I have no idea what the old one was. When I remove it, flow at the sprayer is much greater. I don't understand how the aerator restricts flow to the sprayer. Is there any way to improve this? 1.5gal was the highest they had at the hardware store

It steadily has dropped for a year or more and I can't take it anymore. If I replace will they fix? I pulled it off and even with the water off there is still water coming out of the pipe at a slow, slow drip pace. Is it the water shut off that needs help? Would of course prefer the cheaper fix but if a new head isn't going to stop the leak it'd be good to know.

TIA

You know the temperature thing you turn round from like 0 to 5 depending on how hot you want it to be? Well I think, in trying to turn it off I may have turned it too far. As the it just keeps turning but in a jerky movement and the number doesn’t change if that makes sense? Like there’s a little plastic arrow that points up at the setting it’s on, so that you know what setting it’s on. But now it’s like the whole thing is turning rather than just the plastic cover with the numbers on.

So I think (well I’m hoping cos the opposite would be worse) that it’s now turned completely off and there is no way to turn it on. But because the whole thing is turning and the numbers don’t change up or down regardless of which way you turn it, it’s possible it could be on any one of the 0-5 settings but only stuck as showing on 0.

Hopefully this is the right place to post this and someone has some idea…?

Cheers!

Until we have our old steel pipes replaced, we're dealing with rust that apparently gets caught in our faucet cartridges, thereby causing drips. We've had to replace them regularly. It seems like such a waste to throw out the entire cartridge when just the ceramic pieces and a washer cause the problem.

So rebuild kits aren't available anywhere? I've searched with all the keywords I can think of.

You can hear the flush in the beginning, and a few seconds later a loud knock under the sink area. If I understand, water hammer is from the incoming water stopping suddenly and moving the pipes, but this is definitely elsewhere along the outflow.

Worth mentioning this only happens with solid waste and liquid doesn't do it. Kinda sounds like the outflow pipes are knocking against something when there's bulk in there.

Does this sound kind something to be remedied? Thanks for your help!

Why would this happen? Should I try replacing the wire nut and turning it back on or is there something deeper going on? Thanks for any tips!

Since we moved in we've noticed a sewer smell from time to time. I had a plumber come and identify this laundry discharge pipe not having a trap as the culprit. He ended up ghosting me so I cut more into the wall and found this black thing I couldn't identify until now (I think). I guess it's a drum trap after doing some more googling. If it's working as designed I guess it's supposed to hold water in and not let sewer gas through? but we definitely have a problem with the smell coming from this laundry room. Is this maybe not to culprit and I could leave it alone? I'm considering cutting it out and just connecting PVC the whole way through. Any recommendations or thoughts would be much appreciated.

And here's after I replaced most of it, only thing I didn't replace was from the coupling back to the meter

https://imgur.com/a/axAU8up

Just figured I'd add some content here so I'm just going through old photos/videos.

This is just what our builders are having us use to convert from the pex underground to the main for the house. So if it's breaks the only way shutting off the water is the curb. So shitty.

Mine just exploded and poured about 10 gallons of water under my cabinets. Looking for recommendations for a new one that is reliable.

I've spent 20 years doing high-end resi now I'm trying commercial. Hit me with your best tips brothers and sisters.

I live in Europe. And for me interested which material use in other parts of world for plumbing. For example in new build houses for both types water used plastic pipe. but for heat used cooper pipe. which material used in your region?

Should i be concerned about the blue/green water stains around pipes? If so, should i be replacing the pipe or just clean and move on with life?