Category Archives: Plumbing

May 06 12 comments
Plumbing, Repairs

Unclogging a bathtub drain

About once a year the bathtub drain gets a little slow.  If I ignore this problem, unfortunately it does not seem to go away, it only gets worse.  We end up taking shower baths, which is really annoying, at least to me.  So, once a year I venture into the basement to unclog the beast.

bath tub drain below the floor

bath tub drain below the floor

Because I am the one who installed the bathtub, I am the only one to blame if it is difficult to remove the drain to unclog it.  I think I had good intentions here, but they kind of got buried in the pipes for the solar hot water system.  Anyway, it is not too bad, just a little bit of reaching.  When I removed the trap I stuffed a rag into the sewer line to prevent gas from seeping into the basement while I cleaned out the various pieces.

Fortunately all of the drains are plastic and come apart with little effort.  A pair of slip joint pliers is all that is needed.  In fact, most of the connections are hand tight.

clogged up bath tub drain pipe

clogged up bath tub drain pipe

As I suspected, my wife’s long hair is the culprit.

more hair in bath tub drain

more hair in bath tub drain

Lots of culprit.  I sprayed each part out with a high pressure garden hose and wiped the inside with a rag.  Where the P trap meets the 2 inch drain there was some junk too, I cleaned that with a rag.

Once all the parts are reassembled I ran a little water into the trap to check for leaks and prevent any sewer gas from seeping into the house.

While I was at it, I cleaned out the bathroom sink as well.  This fixture had been draining a little slowly lately.  Same situation, hair.

Took about a half an hour to do and it is a little bit smelly and dirty or disgusting if you think about it too much.  Plumbers charge a lot but they earn their money.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Feb 21 7 comments
Plumbing

Installing a deep sink in the basement

Anyone that know me knows that I am a great advocate of reusing things. We throw a lot of stuff out in this country.  Some of it really should be trashed, however, a great deal of what we throw away is still useful to somebody. To that end, when a friend of mine was cleaning out an old defunct restaurant and came upon some old kitchen equipment, I thought I would take a look.

Low and behold, there was a perfectly good stainless steel deep sink. This deep sink can no longer be used in food service because it has welded seems which can harbor germs. However, it would be perfect for a general purpose deep sink. Best of all, it was free for the taking.  We may not need a deep sink in the basement right away, but, as my lovely and talented wife pointed out, it would be a great place to clean paint brushes.

The sink itself was quite dirty, caked on grease and gummy black gook on the sides, back and all around the faucet.  Mmmm, makes me want to eat out more often.  It took several hours with a scotch bright pad, hot water and Comet to get it to an acceptable level.  Even then, I think I will be cleaning again once it is installed.

Old washing machine hookups

Old washing machine hookups

In our basement, there is an old washer dryer hookup. I long ago removed the electrical feed for the dryer. The waste drain for the washer was cut out when we installed the 3 inch PVC drain during the kitchen move, which leaves these two spigots on the wall that go nowhere. That, it turns out, is the perfect location.

deep sink

deep sink

First thing I did was remove the two old washer spigots and replaced them with 1/4 turn ball valves.  I soldered everything with non-lead solder, as required by the plumbing code.  For more on soldering check out “Plumbing part II, soldering“  Always install shut off valves on a sink, it makes life easier if faucet repair work or replacement is needed in the future.

1/4 turn ball valves

1/4 turn ball valves

I rebuilt the old faucet that came with the deep sink, all it needed was new washers and a new valve seat for the hot side.  The new valve seat is not at all surprising as the faucet was hooked up to city water for at least ten years.  The chlorine in city water often eats away at brass and causes soft brass parts to crumble.

I drilled through the upper part of the back splash so I could rout the pipes down to the faucet and still push the sink all the way to the wall. I don’t know what alloy steel this sink is made from, but it is pretty hard, it took quite a while to drill through with a 1 1/8 inch hole saw.  I was using the drill on slow speed so I would overheat the hole saw and ruin it.

deep sink installed

deep sink installed

I when connecting the faucet, I used  unions on the hot and cold lines so I can easily move the sink if needed.  I used 1 1/2 inch PVC waste drain pipe for the sink drain.  Since it is below the sewer line to the septic tank, I had two options; I could a) install a catch basin with a pump to pump the waste water up to the sewer drain, or b) since it is gray water, empty it into the sump and let the sump pump remove it out into the yard drain.  I choose the (b) option because I don’t think I am going to use this sink all that much and it is an approved method for gray water in my town.  Other municipalities may have different rules.

After all that, I turned the water on, and as they used to say in the Krylon Spray Paint commercials, “No runs, no drips, no errors.”

All in all, a good Saturday project.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Jan 06 1 comments
Plumbing

Changing the Potasium Permanganate bottle

I posted once about our iron well water.  Basically, without a good filtering system, our water would be an orangish brown color.  Lots of Iron, everyone around here has it.

To get rid of the iron, most people use a Culligan water softener.  I don’t like “soft” water, it tastes salty to me.  I also don’t like the way if feels in the shower, like you can’t rinse it off.  It sort of feels like a coating of slime or mud.  Ick.  In addition to that, it seems relatively expensive to pay for the Culligan Man to come out and load all that salt into the water filter every three months.

Since I am not most people, I looked into other ways to get rid of the iron in our water.  I decided on a combination sand/green sand filter.  The sand filter is just that, a sand bed that traps the larger particles and holds them until the sand be gets backwashed.  The green sand filter uses Ion Exchange, in other words, it oxidizes the iron into larger iron oxide molecules, then runs it through a sand bed that traps the particles until backwashed.  I have both filters set to backwash once a week on different days.   It works amazingly well.

So well in fact that we forgot it was there.  Until recently that is, when the water began taking on a rotten egg odor again.  Mostly the hot water in the shower.  Nothing like getting up in the morning to be greeted by a steamy rotten egg smelling bathroom.

potasium permanganate bottle for Kenmore green sand filter

potasium permanganate bottle for Kenmore green sand filter

I quickly determined that the Potasium Permanganate (KMnO4) bottle (small plastic bottle next to unit) on the green sand filter had run out.  It is really easy to replace, simply remove the old one and replace with the new bottle.  It is recommended that you wear gloves and a face mask when replacing.  The I bought an entire replacement bottle from Sears (part #3441799).   I also could have bought 6 pounds of Potasium Permanganate crystals and reused the old bottle.  The only issue now is what to do with the spent bottle, which still has Potasium Permanganate residue in it.  It is considered a powerful oxidizer and is dangerous to aquadic life so it cannot simply be dumped down the drain.  I will contact the county transfer station and find out the proper disposal method.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Sep 22 5 comments
Plumbing

Smelly Hot Water

Update and bump: I finally got around to replacing the anode rod today with a zinc aluminum rod purchased on line. I took this picture of the old and new anodes:

hot water tank anodes old vs new

As you can see, the old anode is pretty much shot. When I flushed the tank out, all sorts of black junk came out. I think the iron reducing bacteria were eating the manganese chunks coming off of the rod. This water tank is only three years old, it kind of floors me that the anode rod would go so fast. A part of it is the water from the old well, which was acidic, ph around 5.5 or so. The new well water is neutral, ph is 7 so perhaps the new anode rod will last a little longer. I will have to add that the my annual check list of things to check.
Update: I investigated the hotwater heater anode today, I think I found the culprit:

corroded magnisium hotwater tank anode

I have ordered a new zinc/aluminum anode today and I will install it as soon as it arrives. In the mean time, I poured about 1/2 a cup of bleach in the open port where the anode was installed. That took care of the rotten egg smell temporarily. Getting a new anode should make the fix permanent. There is a lot of information on the web about water heaters and sacrificial anodes. The purpose of the anode is to prevent the steel tank walls from corroding. If the anode wears out, then the tank will eventually fail, leaving the home owner to replace the entire hot water tank. Most people recommend checking the anode every 3 to 5 years. The above anode is 3 years old.

Original Post:

This one has me scratching my head a bit. Our hot water is now smelly (like rotten eggs), not the cold water, just the hot water. This is a recent development which likely has something to do with the new well. Here is what I know:

  1. Our well has ferric iron (mineral iron dissolved in the water).
  2. We are using a green sand filter to remove the dissolved iron, it appears to be doing a good job (the water looks clear and does not turn brown when exposed to air).
  3. The green sand filter backwashes twice a week.
  4. The well and filter went on line about two month ago, the smelly hot water just showed up about a week ago
  5. It is only the hot water
  6. I have drained some water out of the bottom of the hot water tank, the first gallon or so came out dark, the rest came out clear.
  7. The water tank (electric) is about 3 years old
  8. The temperature is set to about 110-120 degrees

Obviously, it seems that some type of iron reducing bacteria is in the hot water tank creating hydrogen sulfide (H2S) which accounts for the rotten egg smell. But where is the iron coming from? Is the green sand filter not getting all the iron?

Popularity: 9% [?]

Sep 08 14 comments
Alternate Energy, Plumbing, Solar Energy

Solar Hot Water installation update

Update:Todd asked for a schematic, I drew this 2D basic system diagram (click for hi-res picture):

Solar Hot Water Small

Perhaps I was a little optimistic to think that I would get all the plumbing work done in one weekend… I did make some good headway in the basement, but I am nowhere near done.

First, I build a little stand for the drainback tank to sit on. This allows the solar loop pump to be installed below the drainback tank, which I think is a good idea. I used the legs of the stand to mount the two pumps on. I would rather have the pumps attached to something rather than be supported by 3/4 inch or 1/2 inch copper pipe.

This is a double pumped system which are much more efficient at moving heat around than a single pump/convection system. Basically, there are two plumbing loops; the solar loop which runs up to the roof and through the solar collectors then back down to the drainback tank. The hot water tank loop which runs out of the bottom of the hot water tank through a heat exchanger in the bottom of the drainback tank and back into the top of the hot water tank.

The drainback tank (RADCO DBHX 6029-GC) holds eight gallons. This should be enough as each collector holds 1.6 gallons of water when operating. The total pipe run is going to be about 60 feet of 3/4 inch copper. Type K copper pipe has 0.0227 gallons per foot, so the total water in the pipe will be 1.4 gallons, which leaves a minimum of 3.4 gallons of water in the drainback tank. For a full chart of copper pipe technical data, including gallons per linear foot, check out the Copper Pipe and Tubing Cheat Sheet.  This should be enough to keep the heat exchanger submerged and keep the system operating at peak efficiency.

The solar loop uses a TACO 009F pump because of the high static head of the system. At startup, all of the water in the solar loop is in the drainback tank and has to be pumped up to the top of the solar collector, where gravity will then return it to the drainback tank. The top of the solar collector is 24 feet above the drainback tank. According to the pump spec sheet, the flow rate should be 6 gallons per minute. Taking into consideration other factors such as resistance from the pipe itself and things like elbows, temperature gauges, flow meters, etc, the flow rate will more likely be about 5 gallons per minute. Each collector is looking for 0.5 to 1.8 gallons per minute. The are plumbed in parallel, so my maximum flow rate should be no greater than 3.6 gallons per minute. I will likely have to throttle the pump down a little to attain this.

The tank side plumbing loop will use a TACO 003B circulator pump. This flow rate will be about 3 gallons per minute, just enough to keep the heat exchanger working well while not breaking the stratification of the hot water storage tank. This is a potabe water loop, so a pump with a brass casing must be used.

Drain back tank with flow gauge and thermometers for collector send and returns. Flow gauge acts as a sight glass to check drainback tank water level when system is not operating. The solar loop pump is the green unit on the lower left, the hot water tank loop pump is the brown unit on the right.

solar domestic hot water system drain back tank

Popularity: 7% [?]