<p>Plans to go out to dinner were scrapped tonight, as H is replacing the wax ring on a toilet after I discovered a small leak.<br>
I’m feeling a bit guilty goofing around on the computer, so I’m off to do some laundry.<br>
Woo Hoo!!!</p>
<p>Don’t feel bad StickerShock. H and D are camping this weekend so I’m alone tonight and without a car. So I cleaned the kitchen, am doing laundry and some baking. We have leaky plumbing too, so if your H gets done with your toilet, send him over here! The fun never ends! :D</p>
<p>Never, ever, start a plumbing project in evening or Friday, Sat, Sunday, unless you are 100% confident of success. </p>
<p>A toilet leak around the seal is not a good sign. You don’t want to know.</p>
<p>Also buy a new toilet, seat, and bidet. You will thank me for this advice.</p>
<p>Very weird, was thinking how pathetic my weekend nights are and decided to take a break from sorting kids’ craft supplies stored in the attic to check on email and CC.</p>
<p>Speaking of plumbing, H and I looked at our master bathroom sink top this morning which desperately needs to be replaced and soon realized that we also need to replace the loose floor tile, the faucets that have lost their finish, the cabinets, and suddenly we were talking about a huge remodel. Decided to live with the sink top and everything else once H proclaimed “I can do this, how hard can it be?” </p>
<p>FWIW, with four kids, a mom and pop retail store, a tax prep business and a one-day-a-week bookkeeping job I don’t have alot of social time. Last movie I saw was Nanny McPhee with DDs. But I did just take a Mrs. Smith’s blueberry pie out of the oven for S1 who will arrive home for fall break in about three hours! Can’t wait to see him after seven weeks!</p>
<p>In our family room one wall was paneled by 3/16" T&G rough-sawn Wester Red Cedar. The fireplace box was surrounded by extraordinarily ugly 1979 tile. Today, TallSon and I removed the tile, the particle backer board (yes, in the family room, too – at least the subfloor is T&G plywood), and the cedar strips. The cedar strips were laid on the studs, not on a layer of drywall. I won’t bore you trying to explain the odd roofline of our house, but that cedar was exposed to the cold attic. No insulation, nothing between the cedar and the great Northwet. The metal chimney stack also goes into the attic with pretty much nothing around it to keep cold air out in the winter. This means that I have a roughly 84" x 42" uninsulated cold box right in the middle of our house. No wonder our heating bills are so dramatic in the winter.</p>
<p>Of course, the REAL problem is that the metal front edge of the stove sticks out 3/16" beyond the studs, so that the tile they laid for the surround covered the galvanized steel stove face and then covered part of the cedar paneling. In other words, the tile was laid on the cedar and steel, and the face of the stove is not flush with the studs, but flush with the cedar. Since our plan was to replace the cedar with drywall, and you wouldn’t want to use 3/16" drywall, even if someone made it, I’m forced to come up with some other clever way to make the drywall flush with the drywall, or move the stove box back (yeah, that’ll happen) flush with the studs. Another solution, I suppose, would be to fir out the whole stud wall with 1/4" plywood strips (which would be close enough to 3/16", but that would be a giant hassle. Although probably not the biggest hassle.</p>
<p>It’s kind of tempting to go hire a stove company to install a new manufactured fireplace unit, but that would definitely be “not in the budget.”</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m spending my evening stapling and taping plastic sheeting over the hole in my wall so that all that cold attic air doesn’t try to spend the night inside the house. </p>
<p>Does anyone know how close you can put fiberglass insulation to a double-wall steel chimney stack?</p>
<p>A new manufactured fireplace unit would probably end up being cheaper than doing what your are doing, when you factor in labor. How about sealing it all up and installing a direct vent gas heater. We have one and they are great.</p>
<p>StickerShock, Be thankful for a husband who will fix the toilet. My H has an intense fear of plumbing and puts things off forever. We have a toilet repair kit that has been sitting in our bedroom for a year or two now… The toilet doesn’t leak; it’s just that the chain keeps getting tangled, or the float messes up, or some other thing, so I am always having to stick my hand inside the tank to rearrange things. Hate it when that happens in the middle of the night!! I actually should figure out how to do it myself, but H has made so many small changes in there (to avoid a major operation) that I wouldn’t know where to start…</p>
<p>Taking a break from the highly successful (if you’re a Boston fan) Series game…I can’t believe this thread is mostly about plumbing! </p>
<p>Oddly enough, we also had a small plumbing emergency today in the basement as the drain backed up. Every so often it needs to be Roto-Rooted out, and I guess its time has come…sooner than I thought or I would have had a pre-emptive rooting done.</p>
<p>Don’t know if we have a severe problem or not. This was a shower and flush combo, but the problem may be with our agressive tree roots, not our flushing habits. I’m hoping it can wait until Monday.</p>
<p>We had a plumbing problem last weekend. THe master sink was stopped up, DD did not turn the sink all the way off (it was dripping), and I got home to a flooded bathroom and water coming out of the light fixture on to the room below. Thank God I got home when I did! This weekend, DH and I sent our two oldest (Sophomeore in HS D and Freshman in HS S) off to homecoming. Now we’re just puttering around waitng to pick up Freshman S and his date from the dance at midnight (D is spending the night out with a friend). Sigh! They grow up so fast!</p>
<p>The really funny thing (and fortunate) was that I was in the furnace room when and where the backup occurred. I walked in, was busy putting some tools away, and turned around to see water on the floor that I could swear wasn’t there before! I am absent-minded sometimes, but not to THAT extent!</p>
<p>I have been putting a bandaid on our plumbing problem by directing a fan at our basement wall. H has plumbing phobia. This can’t be good. :(</p>
<p>Don’t try to fix a toilet on the weekend. </p>
<p>And definitely don’t try to fix the only toilet in your house on Memorial Day weekend. Especially when you just had a baby 10 days before, by C-section, and you still don’t feel too well.</p>
<p>And if you foolishly do this thing, and the only plumber in your small rural town willing to come fix your ONLY toilet that you have just made completely non-functional (because you were bothered by the little “leak” that was only condensation in the first place) is completely drunk and brings along another drunk friend to keep him company, don’t say I didn’t warn you.</p>
<p>Ah, the memories. The culprit in that case was my visiting father-in-law, but my H learned the lesson: don’t try to fix the plumbing on a weekend.</p>
<p>[WashDad looking quite smug] Just last Sunday I field-stripped the toilet in the master bath and fixed a problem that made the toilet flush poorly, and tend to run on. It turns out that this nagging problem was caused by a small piece of grit partially blocking the water feed line inside the toilet. Now, it works fine, and it only took a couple of hours to puzzle out how it worked and fix it. [WashDad looking quite chagrined] Of course it took me about four years from the date of the first problem before I tackled the problem.</p>
<p>WashDad: Do you work on weekends for CC buddies across the country?</p>
<p>StickerShock: Green with envy. I swear.</p>
<p>Parents, parents, parents!.. I just checked the admissions page of this forum where the kids are agonizing about all things college, and we are talking about … toilets?</p>
<p>This is a very funny thread. It’s nice to know not ALL CC parents are always helicoptering around their kids lives! Washdad- did you get your insulation question answered? If not I’ll ask my resident handyman tomorrow.</p>
<p>BunsenBurner, sure a couple million kids are looking at colleges, filling out applications and agonizing about the outcome. No big deal. Almost all of them will find at least one of the 3000 colleges will take them. If they are determined, they will graduate, go out into the world and find jobs, get married and/or have kids and eventually buy a house. At that point they will have to deal with plumbing issues. The 4 years of college, and even graduate school, will not prepare them. Until they face it themselves, they will not understand that plumbing has changed little since the time of the Romans. Sure the fixtures look modern, but inside the technology is ancient. We still use wax to seal the toilet so waste does not leak onto the bathroom floor. The shutoff valves are packed with greasy rope to ■■■■■■ leakage. Corrosion, leaks, blockages and scaling are to be expected. You also must learn that no parts are standardized and you will get the wrong part and an attitude from the local plumbing supply house. These are serious issues and they are not covered in college. Sure you can always call a plumber. I remember some of those events vividly - like the time I could not figure out how to stop a pinhole leak in a solar panel or replace the heating element in an electric hot water heater. I also remember the cost of the new solar panel and hot water heater and the hundred of dollars it cost for installation. Then there are the emergencies due to leaks. At that point you learn that shutoff valves do not work. You also realize that the local plumber is one of the wealthiest businessmen in the neighborhood. He is not going to give up his Saturday night to work on your pipes. With enough persistence you might get his “helper” but only after the bars close for the night. No BB, these are serious issues.</p>
<p>edad: Too too funny but too too true!</p>
<p>BB: This is a college issue. Unless you’re the plumber, we have to save our dollars for tuition. Can’t go calling a plumber for every problem.</p>
<p>I was an independent home owner with a leak in my shower when I met- ahem- mythdad. (Had been divorced; bought house from ex. – Another story.)</p>
<p>He endeared himself to me by noticed when he used the facilities and set about trying to fix the leak. Plumbing is romantic. </p>
<p>Sealed the deal. </p>
<p>He did try over many attempts and finally … we moved!</p>
<p>He has accomplished much on our pipes since.</p>
<p>May we expand the discussion to electrical matters, or should that be another thread :p?</p>
<p><em>My</em> weekend is being spent staring at at the dismantled halogen tri-pendant front hall ceiling fixture now sitting on my floor. It is uber-cool. But I am now finding that it is uber-annoying. </p>
<p>Owned it for 3 years trouble free and to-die-for in the looks department. Then one halogen bulb burned out. Replacement bulb didn’t accomplish a thing. Made sure that we had the proper bulb for a transformer-type fixture, not the other type (I forget what it’s called). While researching (unsuccessfully) what to do next (place where we bought it has gone out of business and I can’t seem to find my paperwork on brand etc)., a second bulb went. Same lack of success with replacement bulb.</p>
<p>Finally called electrician (after specifying that they need to have experience with low-voltage halogen lighting fixtures). He didn’t figure it out. Took it down, thinks it <em>might</em> need new transformers, but can’t get them. I have to order them online.</p>
<p>All those who think I should just re-install the tacky 1970’s era original fixture, please raise their hands.</p>