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[DUNBAR PLUMBING]

Use this to describe your work day, get stuff off your chest, complain about people on the job site, anything that involves your work.



I started off today knowing I had a lot to do, but wanted every bit of my 5 hours sleep. Didn't sleep good the night before.

Got up, headed out to my first call for a Kohler toilet rebuild, a thread will be started about that toilet.

Got a call for frozen water line I have to be at in less than 5 hours   and I have no idea how bad or what the leak is about.

Had to go to my work truck that is sitting in ohio and pick up some tools. Left there, got a bite to eat and went and replaced a toilet.

We are supposed to have some snow tomorrow but it's so mild that the hype is overrating the issue.

I plan on getting back to the shop as soon as possible and taking care of some invoicing that is piling up at this point.

So glad I got my jobs done today as either one wasn't one of my favorites.  Never been really fond of toilets in any stretch of the imagination.

[Themaster]

The day started off nice,it warmed up alittle but then turned back cold and started raining. Forcasted lows into the mid to low teens with a 0 windchill for this weekend. Just did routine service today and a few freeze associated leaks.

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On wednesday night I got a call from a storage unit in my area that had a water line bust inside their building that happened where contents were damaged. We got there the following morning, had all the storage units items removed so we could work on the piping that burst.

Turns out it was one water line in two spot, 3/4" piping leading from a office bathroom. Piping was not insulated between a drop ceiling and insulation on the rafters, with penetrations in the wall leaving wide open air movement that was enough to freeze the water lines.

After we completed that job, we had a call for two toilets that were not acting right. Further discussion revealed they were mansfield toilets. Picked up the 2 flush seal gaskets, took care of the issue with water leaking into the bowl.

This fellow took an interest in another business I operate, http://koldbreeze.com that involves equipment for misting fans and misting fan products. He operates national cornhole tournaments across the country and locally and had seen our product at a local festival, getting a full understanding of how well our product  works.

Spent the rest of this evening, and morning working on the internet...5:00am and I've been up since 8am yesterday and I literally could stay up 24, at least it feels like it right now. 

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Gotta love it when you can't sleep in late and people are calling you with busted water lines and frozen water pipes, clogged drains. Makes me sleep good, if and when I sleep. 


Heading out to unclog a garbage disposal and possibly another frozen water line job, then come back to finish two lavatory faucet replacements at a dance studio in Independence Kentucky.

I'm ready to work all night if it takes that long. I'm ready. 

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This day went way too quick but I'm glad I got what I needed, done.

First job was draining water heaters, replacing two faucets. Then I get a call for a clogged garbage disposal. I took advantage of this because I needed to go "rebuy" a tool that I now own two of and use it to remove the faucet in a women's bathroom at a dance studio.

The job took me right past a home depot so it worked out quite nicely. I get there and take a shop vac and pull the remaining drain cleaning products out of the garbage disposal and began removing the piping.

Took the piping outside with the customer and cleaned it, reinstalled it and drain was flowing fine.

Went back to my faucet replacement, filled the water heater back up and installed one of the two faucets I'm working on. I believe I have a clogged dielectric union on the water heater serving this dance studio so I'm going to check that tomorrow, see if that is why the hot water flow is so diminished in this building.

Couldn't get into the other side of the building's basement as the key wouldn't open the door. Going back tomorrow to attempt to get that done as well as rebuilding a two handle delta faucet, call it done and collect on the job.


Came home and I've been working on the internet ever since, starting the blog feature with topics relating to the current weather and how it affects the plumbing system in your home.

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Got off to a rough start but once the gears were turning we had a good shot and getting everything done.

First call today was a repeat customer that has cancer and needed his toto toilet rebuilt. Unfortunately, this is the second time I've have to replace the fill valve and the 1st time to replace the flapper.

Another call came in today for a possible repipe of a home where all the lines froze and I instantly dismissed this call as I wasn't too interested in giving estimates to look at unopen walls. A larger job than I want to deal with.

Being able to write today was an understatement. It just flowed like water down a stream for me and I wish I didn't have to leave today as it cramped my stride after I got back. Keeping my above customer happy was a priority though.

A third call came in for a kitchen sink clog for tomorrow, along with a laundry tub replacement. Busy day tomorrow and hoping for warmer weather.

The two customers that called me this weekend are customers I worked for years ago. It's a good feeling that you can count on these calls, be able to schedule them as soon as they call in.

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Here's a thread I started on another forum that is about to crest 14,000 views from untold numbers of guests, and over 180 members of Ridgid.com's forum:

http://www.ridgidforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22222


This is what you call... spamming your own site.      !!!!!

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Started out with a late start but once we got rolling it was non-stop from that point on. I went over to get my truck looked at again and turned out it was a leaking o-ring on the fuel filter canister. Two service calls came in and one was a leaking galvanized pipe over the water heater and the other was a clogged main drain.

The first call was like most, unexpected in the situation that the ceiling was low   but the piping was messed up going to the water heater and the main shut off had  been leaking for some time. Once I got the piping reworked over top the water heater, the customer went to turn the main shutoff back on and and damn if it didn't snap off. Gate valves are notorious for this issue so I'm not the least bit surprised. I went and turned off the water at the meter base and pulled the gate out so he'd have water back onto the house. All connections were tight and I have to come back later this week and install a new main water line valve. This will be a one and only time event as ball valves are usually a lifetime valve in longevity and wearability.

The second job was the main drain issue. This one was interesting for many reasons as a friend of this homeowner attempted to clear the drain without success. I had an aggressive blade on my drum machine and the last foot is bent like a hard whip. When I arrived, large amounts of old black sewage was present on the floor around where it backed up out of the floor drains. Old black sewage is always evident of old problems. When I ran my cable on the first pass, found one spot around 50+ feet that indicated the clog was there. Took it out 75' and pulled it back, started to move around again, pushed forward back into the area the water started to move around and got it open.

Reeled the cable back and right when I was pulling the cable to put it back in the drain, a damn cap off a large bottle of laundry detergent that I use to keep my hands lubricated fell into the hole. We had the water running and sure enough, sent that cap down the main. I always make 2 passes when drain cleaning but when I put my cable in the drain, I got back in contact with the cap around 30 feet, and the fellow who tried to clear the drain before us mentioned he had a problem at that location. So in the end I got the main line open with a good idea of two bad spots in the piping. Customer was glad I made it out and I told him I bought him some decent time before the next time it backs up. Pulled back a tampon so there's something to blame for the issue.

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  Only one service call today but yesterday was a rough one for me on the body. Was nice on the income front. Had to go look at a job where there was a leak coming out of the ceiling. I get there and the leak had dried up, ran all the fixtures up above and couldn't get it the leak to start back up.

However, I believe that there might be a strong correlation between a huge snow and a roof flashing around the vent on this condo that might of caused a leak that came down and followed the main vent stack. I told the condo owner to keep an eye on that next time we get a good driving rain or snow that accumulates significantly on the roof of the home.

Once I finished that job I came home and have been working online ever since.

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Today started off by oversleeping, then making a mad rush to get to my first job to meet a plumbing inspector. His visit confirmed what I knew was coming. See the above thread regarding the commercial kitchen thread.

The day was filled with many phone calls and work being lined up for saturday and monday, along with follow-ups from other jobs I recently completed. Getting busy is always good for many reasons in business.

After I met with the inspector, headed out to meet a repeat customer that got parts for my truck, really appreciated that. I then went over to see about a water heater issue regarding a corroding connection up top of the water heater...

As soon as I arrived, walked down the steps, didn't see any corrosion and the location of the leak was doomsday for the tank. It's a ProFlex by American Mfg. Company and I told them instantly that the water heater has to be replaced.

We set up a sale for the company we dealt with for yesterday's water heater install but they wouldn't send a truck out later, (after 4pm) to make the sale on a more expensive tank, keep my repeat customer happy.

They said no, customer paid $15 more for the same water heater at a closer location. I cannot blame them however. This set the wheels in motion for us to install that water heater for later today (saturday)  and get these repeat customers some hot water again.

Left that residence, made a trip to the shop to send a quick estimate by email that didn't go through the night before on a job down in Covington Kentucky and headed out to my evening water heater replacement. The water heater call came in the day before and the property owner found us on a google search. Reinforcing that decision to use our services, we got the customer back in shape with hot water within 24 hours. A failing dip tube was to blame on the water heater failure but the tank was leaking in numerous spots that ended the life of this nearly 16 year old water heater. Finished up around 9pm and called it a day. Headed back to the shop and have been working online the rest of the evening.

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I'm turning into "loose end larry" these days.  :o  Took care of two service calls today, both were repeat customers from years ago.

First customer had a clogged laundry tub that the kitchen sink waste was backing up into. The property owner attempted to clear the drain himself but the clog was actually further out than the length of the cable he had.

Once we started, running water to build up the wastewater worked to the advantage of getting the drain open with the cable spinning. Got it open and ran a complete tank of hot water out of the water heater, advised them to use a Dawn Dish Detergent solution for preventative maintenance of the drain.

Second call was a single handle delta faucet that had poor water pressure. When we arrived we went through the motions to figure out "why" this faucet had such poor pressure through the pull out spray.

The first thing we noticed was the issue with the sprayer hose, the metallic wrap around the hose was damaged in numerous spots for some strange reason.  We bypassed this hose by removing the top end of the faucet and flow was excellent. I went ahead and told the customer to contact Delta while I was there and we was able to get the parts shipped to them...seat cups and springs, new camber assembly and a new sprayer hose that I need to install when I return.

Came home and have been working online ever since...catching up on emails SUCK! Glad to get ahead on the things that needed to be done though.

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First call was a clogged toilet, used a closet auger and removed the problem. Most likely to blame was chronic use by someone who takes blood pressure medication. This problem can get out of hand and clog/restrict the toilet over time, starting inside the trapway of the toilet and leading into the piping system.

Second call was a toilet problem at a funeral home. Get there and the toilet is leaking profusely all over the floor, toilet seems to be leaking from the front. We removed the toilet to find that the wax seal was mostly intact and couldn't find traces of a wax ring blowout from plunging or sewer gases that were slowly escaping between toilet and ring, ring to flange. Went ahead and reset toilet with curiosity why it leaked. Older toilet and recommended replacement to newer 1.6 gallon flush toilet. This toilet is a 3.5 gallon flush toilet and the toilet randomly flushes at best.


Third call was a gas line job where there were numerous gas leaks detected by the tenant, which led to the local gas utility company to come and shut off the gas to the building. Our quick response was the difference to this customer and was very thankful that we came abruptly to resolve the issue. Leaks were resolved and customer committed to additional gas line work to remove all blade type gas valves that have a gland type assembly that's prone to leaking. Got the property back up and functional on the furnace, water heater and gas stove.

Fourth call was a main valve replacement that was a follow-up to a job we did a week prior that the main shutoff, a gate valve broke when turning the water back on. The service call happened late at night and the quick resolve was removal of the gate inside the valve to restore water to the structure. When we came back, we removed that non-functioning shutoff with a full port ball valve that solves the problem of a non-working valve over time.

Later today we'll be doing numerous tasks at one location that will be one of one of two jobs possibly being done. Sleep would be nice to have at this point before all this begins. 

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I don't know why I forgot to do this yesterday but I'll spit it out:


I did a lav faucet replacement yesterday that sucked so damn bad that I'm bruised all over the arms and back from fighting the one plastic nut that I could not get off the brass shank. I ended up taking my torch, under this sink and getting that shank super hot, plastic melting and dripping down and got that nut to finally come off.

The further it came down, the tighter it got and a basin wrench and my ridgid special tool was on the verge of breaking trying to get it to come off.

Plastic wasn't old enough to be brittle, like most become.

12" vanity door, a deep cabinet, 28" I believe with 2 large drawers to the right. Supply connects were way too close to the bottom of the sink top.

My eyes never physically saw the underside of this setup, impossible. I barely got the new Delta 522 back in there.

After I finished that disaster, headed to a toilet on the other side of the house, Toto Drake that was underflushing and the fill valve was operating every time the shower was used. ?

The fill valve was directing water outside the overflow tube, the korky fill valve was malfunctioning which is a common problem with those fill valves. I replaced that fill valve and installed a new flapper to call it done inside the tank, along with a new stainless steel flex supply line.

 After that I had to replace an old laundry tub faucet that was in dire need of replacement. Had CPVC ran to the faucet about 2 foot away, switched to copper piping and went ahead and installed 2 new 1/4 turn shutoff valves along with new washing machine hoses that were numerous years old. The black rubber washing machine hoses should be replaced every two years, the stainless steel ones every 5, but I seriously do not expect people to replace a braided stainless steel supply line unless it is leaking.

On this same job, the customer has a 3 handle price pfister faucet that a plumber prior to me installed, customer got for good price and has had problems with ever since. The diverter keeps malfunctioning which is causing issue with taking showers, wasting water that's flowing out of the tub spout at the same time.

I don't have a very high opinion of price pfister...I think some of their older faucets were decent/reliable but the newer ones come with way too many parts, a lot of them being plastic ones as well.

There is a possibility that the installer of the faucet either

1. Sweated this valve in without removing the internals of the faucet

or

2. Didn't flush out the water lines before water was ran through the faucet, thus clogging the faucet up and possibly damaging the internals.

All I could recommend at that point was to contact the product maker, request all new internals. It's good on Price Pfister's behalf to be sending all new parts to resolve this issue on this faucet, but the "buyer beware" scenario comes in when the voice on the other end of the phone said "We no longer make this faucet and the parts will have to be backordered." WTF???

Now we know why it was a 'good deal'.  The installation actually was illegal because in the state of Kentucky, all faucets used for showering/bathing must be thermostatically protected by pressure balancing, with one exception of a handheld unit with proper backflow protection. <<< Something you would only see in either a hospital or special care application, maybe a hotel room accommodation.

Out of all the work that was done above, only one issue has cropped up and that is the pop-up assembly for the Delta 522 faucet is not working properly to get the pop-up to raise high enough to drain quicker. I'll most likely come back tomorrow and try to adjust this linkage but I'm out of rod travel and it's directly on top of the drain going through the wall. Not much room for give. We really appreciate this customer as we just started doing work for them, he's had a bad experience with a plumber and recently a HVAC company and I'm a breath of fresh air to putting faith back into service providers and their reliability to the consumer.

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This is going to be one crazy day, tons of work, it'll be an interesting read for sure. Need coffee, bad.   

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Our day started out with a visit to a home where we installed a Reverse Osmosis System around 7 months ago. A leak was being noticed and damage being done to the base cabinet.  We arrived at the home and did about 10 different tests to recreate this situation of leaking, and proved unsuccessful. We simply could not get this system to leak, we checked all piping underneath the sink including the garbage disposal, drains, water lines.

The only thing we could surmise was that the movement of the supply/feed lines serving the RO system was being disturbed, causing the push-fit connections to leak randomly. We are not sure of this possibility...it was merely a guesstimate. We left the residence with the assurance that we did our best to locate/create a leak so it could be pinpointed and corrected.

In the same exact subdivision, we were called out by a repeat customer to address a few plumbing related issues in the home. The first task was removing an old/leaking/non-functioning badger 5 garbage disposal that was not working. We advised the customer to purchase the new Insinkerator Evolutions Series Garbage Disposal: Compact. This disposal is the low end of the high end equation of that product line, is extremely quiet and reasonably priced.

Once we replaced this unit we inspected a Mansfield toilet that constantly sounded like it had water moving through it. Upon inspection, we noticed that the fill valve was not only leaking but it was running into the overflow. Continued...

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