Here is a video of a water heater that was opened up for inspection to see if  there was any sediment inside the tank. As revealed, it was more than obvious that a large amount of sediment was collected over the years, slowly removing the efficiency of the water heater as it progresses in age.

Too often, the property owner utilizes the life of a water heater by keeping it in service as long as it is working, not leaking and continuing to produce hot water. What happens in that very scenario spells higher energy bills as the water heater is in diminished capacity by the collection of sediment and scale, calcium carbonate that collects from the 1000′s of gallons of water that moves through the water heater monthly.

We make a point  to try and encourage customers to drain their water heater annually but most times it is a one and done situation. If we replace a water heater, we always show the customer the buildup inside the tank, and most times we’ll be there the year after to drain the water heater, but the customer won’t follow the yearly annual cost to drain the water heater.

It becomes a out of sight, out of mind purchase and as long as it is producing hot water, the majority ignore any maintenance to their purchase. I can see though why they look at the initial cost, know how the last water heater was taken care of (no maintenance) and figure any money spent above and beyond is wasted.

That isn’t the case as the video above follows that logic of what can happen, and how inefficient the water heater becomes. – Dunbar Plumbing

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Dunbar Plumbing was called out to install a 3 handle faucet in a existing  structure down on Short and Pike street in Bromley Kentucky.  At first we assumed the faucet was a single handle device, which normally denotes pressure balanced. The state of Kentucky and many other states on a national level require that any bath tub or shower must have a device installed that protects the end user of the faucet from extreme hot or cold fluctuations in the temperature. This is a protection that affords the removal of possibilities of people with certaain physical or mental issues that can cause harm to themselves or others. Epileptic seizures are one common example in what these new designs in shower valves are good at protecting from. Inside a potable water system there is a give and take scenario that is constantly playing out as you consume water inside your home.

When this happens, pressure between the hot and cold inside the piping can be unequal for various reasons. This is where the balancing spool inside these new style faucets protect by offering the pressure differential being matched and no temperature spikes result. A pressure balanced valve avoids the sharp decrease in pressure when a toilet is flushed, a sink faucet ran, dishwasher going through cycles along with a washing machine on a fill cycle. These can affect the way the tub-shower faucet emits water at a steady temperature.

It was after we explained all these benefits to the customer that a decision was made to switch to the single handle faucet. At Dunbar Plumbing we would of flatly refused to install a non pressure balanced shower valve given the hazard involving the old design without protection. It is in the best interest of the customer and all parties involved that the plumber provide the instruction and recommendation through insight of the code requirements.

This faucet installation took roughly 3.5 hours from start to finish to install the faucet. There were considerations of course that gave a degree of difficulty to the task at hand but the struggle was short lived. A template of the remodel plate was etched on the wall before cutting to make sure the opening was enough access to allow free movement to install the new shower faucet. Once the opening was created we began roughing in the Delta R10000 valve body from Delta Faucets to mount into the wall connecting the hot and cold water supplies as well as the shower riser and tub spout.

Once the tub shower valve was properly reconnected inside the wall to the water piping , the remodel plate that serves as the opening to cover the prior 3 hole design was installed and secured to the wall, aligning center where the shower valve came out of the wall.

From there the faucet cartridge, chrome trim hardware and tub spout were installed to complete the job at hand. The faucet was operable and ready to use right away. Dunbar Plumbing offers this type of plumbing work and specialize in emergency calls relating to issues such as these. Contact us for more information at 859-359-4833 for more information or visit our main website at www.DunbarPlumbing.com

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Here is a video of an American Standard Champion 4 toilet. This toilet has become a very popular toilet for Dunbar Plumbing to install for the simple design and powerful flushing action. The new flush valve design was initially designed to rectify the problems with the former American Standard Champion 3 toilet. Many problems resulted in that interior design of the flush valve tower that had too many moving parts that proved troublesome.

The American Standard toilet is a common brand that is sold at the big box stores such as Home Depot and Lowes Home Improvement stores. The most common purchase has been the taller toilet with elongated bowl. This provides a better experience while using the toilet.

There are many reasons to replace a toilet. When Dunbar Plumbing is called out to make repairs to a toilet that is malfunctioning, we take the time to discuss with the customer the make and model of the toilet, the current condition of the toilet, the history of the toilet in regards to clogging.  When a toilet has such history, meaning a toilet that consistently will not take down waste matter or toilet paper, this becomes a nuisance problem and interrupts the purpose of what the toilet is designed to do. Asking key critical questions are important to make sure the toilet, not the people using the fixture,  is to blame for the chronic issues of the toilet not performing. We have been called out countless times for non-fixture related issues why toilets don’t properly flush or take waste matter away. Certain brand names including certain time frames in the history of a product can sometimes spell out the troubles that are commonly had with toilets.

With the American Standard Champion 4 toilet, our customers have been extremely pleased with the flushing action of the toilet with a “no worry” attitude about what possibly gets thrown down the toilet. This toilet uses a small fraction of water compared to the older 1.6 gallon toilets including the 3.5 gallon flush toilets. Now that these new style toilets use so little water compared to the wasteful 3.5 gallon toilet, it’s a no brainer that those older toilets were such a costly design. We’ve watched the advancements in the technology grow over the past 25 years and it has been a road hard paved with good intentions to finally get a good working, good flushing toilet.

Most American Standard Champion Toilets in the Northern Kentucky/Greater Cincinnati area price somewhere around the $260-$285 price level which supplies the tank, the bowl, the toilet seat lid and a wax ring and closet bolts to install the toilet. We prefer not to use the wax ring and bolts as both do not serve a good application for long term use. A long toilet supply line is required for the taller American Standard Champion 4. The toilet seat lid that comes with this toilet is graded at “fair” given there are many other grades of quality that would prove better. Inside of the tank the fill valve is a Fluidmaster 400A made specifically for this product along with the new flush valve assembly that American Standard has perfected in design to provide the best flushing experience. Here is another short video that shows the inside of the Champion 4 toilet tank.

Contact Dunbar Plumbing today at 859-359-4833 to schedule a visit to discuss replacement of your toilet with an American Standard Champion 4 toilet today!

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The drain problem with this plumbing actually created itself a few days prior when we was called out to clear a laundry tub that was backing up whenever the washing machine was ran during operation. This turned out to be quite a task as the piping arrangement is old, undersized piping was used to incorporate a makeshift washer box that should of been ran in 2″ piping. The piping used was 1.5″ which makes for resistance when that much wastewater is discharged into the piping system.

We used our smallest drain cleaning machine to attempt to clear this drain like we do every other common laundry tub clog. The “majority” are cleared instantly and it takes years to hear back from our customers as we did that thorough of a job to correct the situation. This one however proved to be more than just a “simple” job. 3 separate passes with our cable encountered very hard obstructions just maneuvering around the trap at the base of this washing machine standpipe, then progressing downward into the floor. Once we made it past those two areas the machine handled the cleaning with little or no effort. At no time was the floor drain showing any indication that the larger piping system connecting to the washing machine/laundry tub was affected. After numerous attempts with cleaning the drain piping, we didn’t have that 100% acceptance that we were leaving the piping in a solid good condition. Sometimes with older piping you just cannot get it clean enough by mechanical means. Piping that is nearing 60 years old has served its life and managing the piping system through periodic drain cleaning will be the rule, not the exception anymore.

After the above was performed, a call came in from the customer stating that now black wastewater was emitting through the floor drain. We mentioned prior that a larger machine might be required to go through a larger drain opening but the floor drain wasn’t considered, since the problem with the laundry tub was not relating to the floor drain. Attempting to clear the floor drain first would prove a misstep as this would not clear the laundry tub specifically. Furthermore, our customers would tend to believe that we were suggestively upselling them by performing an unnecessary task. Simply not true, this is just part of a normal routine that you follow the piping arrangement that includes the fixture that’s malfunctioning/clogging and then consider the larger piping arrangement if numerous issues are collectively backing up, showing problems.

Dunbar Plumbing has some of the best drain cleaning equipment in the Northern Kentucky area for clearing obstructions in plumbing systems. We’ve always made the statement that “If we cannot get your drains opened, most likely you’ll be contacting someone to dig it up and repair it.” Of course, sometimes patience can win the best of many battles and extensive time trying to beat or win against the clogged drain can be costly to the consumer. Our years of drain cleaning provide the experience needed to understand what methods work best to clear an obstruction correctly and as quickly as possible.

Our Spartan 300 drain machine with the 100 interchangeable drum was used in this manner to clean the obstruction from the piping. A root cutting blade along with the cable bent approximately 1′ back from the leader to act as a whip in the drain to extensively clear any obstruction it faces, travelling down the path of the drain. The floor drain opened rather quickly but the drainage went down considerably slow. During this time the equipment was running, we had the owner of the property flushing the toilet as we were running the washing machine dumping the water into the drain at an accelerated rate to see how the maximum flow affected the water sitting in the trap of the floor drain.

At first, we thought the drain was 100% clear but numerous flushes of the toilet along with the constant running of water through the laundry tub and the toilet flushing, the system started to back up again. Two more passes with the machine taking the cable out to 20 feet made a remarkable difference and the wastewater inside the trapway discontinued with raising above the trap’s current water level. When we removed the cable from the drain, roots were attached to the aggressive root cutting blade. Contact Dunbar Plumbing at 859-359-4833 to schedule your drains to be cleaned so that we can get your plumbing back into a condition that provides the best free flowing piping arrangement. Call Dunbar Plumbing today!

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It was apparent that the faucet supply was split and spraying water onto the wood shelving underneath the sink.

Copper in the Northern Kentucky/Greater Cincinnati area has a pretty good reputation for being a good piping choice for potable water systems. However, many conditions can create copper piping to fail as we see in the video.  When the copper tubing was removed, the first detection we didn’t find was corrosion of the copper pipe. A stress crack formed in the copper tubing where the solid tubing started to go into the corrugated design. The tubing itself is extremely thin which also might be to blame for why the it did not take much for the failure.

A lot of different possibilities come into play with how this happened. We know that high water pressure is very common in the Covington Kentucky area. This is why the main shutoff valve leading into this building was barely cracked open. This might take care of the amount of flow when the water is moving, but when the water becomes standstill inside the building, the water pressure will instantly go to the static pressure of the main line in the area. Fort Thomas feeds the water to the Covington Kentucky area by gravity. No pumps are required to move the pressure down hill.

We haven’t done a full disclosure on the building’s plumbing system but we would like to think that once we check out other points of interest in the plumbing system, there might be other issues aside from high water pressure.

Carefully we removed the defective faucet supply line and installed a new 20″ stainless steel flex supply line from Fluidmaster. Dunbar Plumbing uses Fluidmaster products in the plumbing industry due to the proven reliability of the products and superior quality against other products that are sold in supply houses, big box stores. The stainless steel braid is a good reinforcement for supply lines but should not be misconstrued for extra protection. High water pressure is an issue that in most cases must be corrected in order to protect the plumbing system. In the area of covington however, most if not all potable piping systems in older buildings were undersized to 1/2″ which creates a problem when a Pressure Reducing Valve is installed along with a Thermal Expansion Tank to control pressure. This will create a sharp decrease in water pressure in the use of fixtures on the second and third floors of a building (higher if more stories of height) when undersized potable water supply piping has been used.

The faucet supply line was tested for leaks through a series of tests before confirming the repair was complete.

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Here is a plumbing job we did in Latonia Kentucky for an accounting firm. This second floor bathroom has a tub and shower combination unit along with a toilet and vanity in this bathroom. Dunbar Plumbing was called out to remove this tub/shower unit to make way for more space inside this bathroom as the unit was not being used.

The tub/shower combo was carefully removed with attention to making sure we did not damage the piping leading to this unit. Simple use of a crowbar and hammer was used to remove the paneling along with the 2 by 4 wood structure that stiffened the support of this unit.

Once the unit was dismantled, the mortar that was previously used to support the base was discarded along with the tub unit itself including the walls. When all was removed we capped off the water lines below the floor along with capping off the drain line that led to the tub drain.

At the same time, we removed a harvest gold 3.5 gallon flush toilet that was leaking through the tank, which was the result of a failing toilet flapper. The owners of the property also mentioned that the toilet constantly clogged which provided justification of the replacement of the toilet.

An American Standard Champion 4 toilet was installed after adjustments to the water line were made including a new wax ring, toilet flange bolts and new toilet supply line. When the toilet was pulled up for removal, we had noticed that the wax ring had leaked prior, most likely to blame was the horned wax ring that was used by the initial installer of the wax ring.

At Dunbar Plumbing we do not use horned wax rings for the very reason that they are notorious for leaking after installation. Any incorrect height in flange or floor condition can create these horned wax rings to fail without warning.

Removal of the tub along with the faucet, old toilet was discarded to make way for the new materials to be installed in the bathroom. Customer was very satisfied with the flushing capabilities of the Champion 4 toilet from American Standard. Contact Dunbar Plumbing at 859-359-4833 for information about work in your bathroom or go to www.DunbarPlumbing.com for more information.

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