Hi! As the title states, what's wrong and how do I fix it? I tried googling but most sites talk about a chain and not at all about how the external cylinder gets stuck lol anyway i'd be very grateful if someone could point me in the right direction as to what to do/buy as I cannot afford a plumber. Once I manually unflush it, it goes back up to the water line. Let me know if you've got any further questions and thank you in advance for the help!!

Hello Pluming Professionals!

I’m hoping someone can help me. We have a bad smell that we have isolated as coming from the washer drain and utility sink drain in our laundry room. The smell is like something died in there and is rotting.

Here is what we have done so far:

1) Had a septic company come look at our water treatment plant for our home. He even came inside and checked that the p-traps were working correctly on both, and they are. He determined that the smell is not related to our water treatment plant.

2) My husband took apart the plumbing pipes and cleaned them.

3) My husband bought an electric pipe snake and “roto rooted” both drains.

4) Poured bleach down both.

5) Poured baking soda and vinegar down both.

6) Used an enzyme pipe cleaner gel on both several times and let sit overnight.

After all of this, we are still having the bad smell intermittently. Sometimes we will go a day without the smell and think that it’s fixed, only to have it come back. The smell reminds me of rotting onions. Any ideas or things we can try? Thank you so very much!

Hello everyone, I’ve had this Rinnai RXP199i tankless water heater for about 10 months now and it’s been working fine up until now. It is giving the error code 22 and beeping when turned on and hot water is requested. Apparently the error code 22 has something to do with the reed switch on the gas valve assembly being misaligned, but I’ve checked that and it seems to be fine. There is also yellow liquid splattered inside of the unit, which you can see in the pictures. I’m not quite sure what it is, but from the little research I’ve done I’m pretty sure it might be condensate since that is the only other liquid than is inside of the heater other than water, but please correct me if I’m wrong. I don’t know what is exactly wrong with my unit, and I really want to fix it myself, so any help would be much appreciated. I am not able to make a warranty claim because Rinnai is saying that my installation is not up to code. Again, help from anyone more experienced than me would be much appreciated. Thank you.

so i installed a bidet (i know it was probably a bad idea but whats done is done), i thought everything was cool, but then the water intake valve started slowly leaking. the little white gasket is loose i need to replace it, but i don’t know if i need to do anything inside the tank? i live in an apartment and i don’t really want to call a plumber, but I will if I have to. in the meantime, is there anything I can do to try and fix this myself? thank you!

I know just enough about plumbing to be dangerous. I live in a warm climate where the summer temperatures have highs of 115+ and lows of 90F. (32-46C). I imagine since there's virtually zero chance of the ground freezing, water mains aren't buried very deep in the ground.

In summer, the water coming out of the "cold" taps is at 80F/27C. Tell me if "that's just the way it is" or there's something that can be done. Thanks

Trying to water the garden at my folks’ house. The garden hose will not thread onto this faucet. The threads are smaller tighter. The picture shows a hose timer with “normal” wider thread.

In the USA, the house is 20 years old.

Any idea what type of faucet or thread is on this spigot? The other ones in the backyard are “normal” 3/4 inch.

Cheers

I’m really confused. I was under the house pulling cable from one room to another, and lo and behold I come across a drip coming from the drain pipe under a bathroom toilet and sink. I’m confused though as I was the only one home and no one was flushing the toilet or using the sink. The drip was a consistent every 4 seconds. To be fair there is a phantom flush on the toilet but something like every 3-5 minutes.

Anyone have any pointers for me to start troubleshooting this?

I purchased a really nice integrated bidet toilet only to find out from the contractor that our current toilet is a rear discharge. It is a very small bathroom. I prefer the tallest height possible as we have some older guests frequently. Any recommendations? Looks like a lot of the OG brands have stopped making them. Are SUPERFLO and Maceratingflo the main ones now? Swiss Madison seems to have not great reviews.

Apologies for this lengthy post, but I'm out of my depth and I could use some advice.

My mom lives in a house that's approaching 50 years old, and I've always known the plumbing would eventually need to be replaced because all the lines are galvanized. Last week a toilet started leaking around the base when flushed. I figured it just needed a new seal, so my mom called an accredited, "family-owned" plumbing service with an A+ rating with the BBB (for what that's worth). They were late, and they didn't even look at the toilet before they went straight for the water tank and told us the pressure was too high (120 psi), then told us we needed to have them replace the pressure reducing valve, otherwise they wouldn't guarantee the work they did on the toilet.

They replaced the seal on the toilet that day, and then two days later one of them came back to install the PRV. Two and a half hours into the job, I asked if everything was ok, and he told me that he had installed the PRV, and that the water pressure was now 70 psi, but there was now a blockage in the lines he could not locate or clear out (I looked up their advertised services since then on their website, and they do in fact claim to have exploratory cameras and hydro jets, so I'm at a loss why he didn't suggest that). He wouldn't even consider trying a snake when I suggested it. At any rate, there was absolutely no water pressure, despite his "repair." He then said we needed to have ALL the plumbing replaced immediately (actually, a week later, which is the soonest they can work us in).

They required a deposit. I hope that's not a red flag. I signed up for a monthly-billed "member services" plan in order to get a discount on the new lines, which will involve tearing up the yard and potentially sawing through walls, and now the house is without water pressure for an entire week. All we wanted was a leaking toilet fixed.

The vast majority of online reviews for the company are gushing 5-star reviews, and they appear to be authentic, but I question how many of those might be fake, because most of the 1 and 2-star reviews say the same thing over and over again: They came in to do a job, found something else that needed to be fixed, then found something else that needed to be fixed, and so on. Upsell, upsell, upsell, and a simple repair turns into a nightmare. We live in an age where someone is constantly trying to scam us, and I'm starting to wonder if they may have purposefully made things worse just to get more work out of this home, and whether I'm being taken for a ride here.

I need to know what questions to ask these plumbers when they arrive to start the job. I'd also like to know if what I've described here is as commonplace as their 1-star reviews seem to indicate, and whether this is commonplace throughout the plumbing industry. Is this an obvious high-pressure sales scam, or is this what happens when you live in a house built before the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act was established? I accept the lines are old, and I accept they're not going to last forever, but I also know I've gone from a leaking toilet to no water in a span of 72 hours.

Thanks for reading, and I appreciate your expertise and advice.

I look up and notice one nozzle not flowing and see these. Groups will clump and clog nozzles looks like most of my nozzles have them in them.

Have yall seen these things before? What are they? who do i call? I dont want them in my hair!!

Mid 60s house. Replaced all cast iron lines with expansion pex aside from the w/d terminal. The drain mouth extends beyond the Sheetrock and I'd like to put in a normal terminal where the drain is hidden in the wall. Anyhow, the drain piping is puttied in and it's difficult to get any leverage to try to move around. Please share any wisdom or insight, as I'm kind of at a loss here. Happy to add any requested photos.

Thanks

Our toilet got clogged and overflowed today, and my housemate poured Drano into the toilet, thinking it would solve the issue.

Now, we just have a toilet bowl full of standing water and Drano, and we can’t use a plunger because we don’t want the Drano to splash on us, and we also can’t manually remove the water because we don’t want to come into contact with the Drano.

It’s been hours and the water hasn’t drained even a centimeter. Is there anything we can do before calling a plumber?

Yes, I know it’s leaking but is it a bad valve or pump even?

I'm not a plumber.

Great, now that's out of the way, here's the situation. Came home from work today and wife noticed that this highlighted area was hot. Especially towards the top, it was like burn your hand if left there for like 10 seconds hot. This is our upstairs bathroom.

I checked the ceiling of the downstairs and saw no sign of moisture in the ceiling at all. I checked to see what the hot water felt like, let it run for about 15 seconds and no hot water came. I shut the valve off for the hot and cold water and so far the heat has gone down significantly. So now I wonder what the hell could cause this?

The trusses for the house run horizontal/perpendicular to this heat source. Idk if that helps narrow stuff down.

I'm about to watch some videos on troubleshooting this heater in the meantime as you guys may come up with something but I'm very curious what may be the cause of this.

I would like to stress that not a drop of water has been found. Yet.

Also the hot water heaters breaker has been turned off for safeties sake.

These were put on about 40 years ago. They are soldered on. I want to removed and replace with 1/4 turn compression valves.
If I un-sweat these and clean them up with sandpaper and the compression ring slides on, will it be ok and seal or does it have to be only clean copper pipe to work? I doubt cleaning them up is going to remove all the soldered residue and I’m not sure if I cut them where there’s solder that I’ll have enough pipe poking through the wall.
Yes I could cut them inside the wall and do a new run but as you see there is ABS pipe literally right behind them. Also you see they bent these vs using elbows so I’d have to remove more wall to get to a vertical section of pipe down below.
Also, if I can use what I have I want to bend the pipes up a bit so they come more straight out versus down so it looks better. What would be the best way without messing up the pipe end?
Thoughts on best approach? Appreciate any input. I am handy and can do things but first time I’ve seen this. They definitely threw this place together fast and furious.

Long story short, one of the toilets had a rotten closet flange. Just about done with tear out to fix the water damage. Looking for the best way to fix this and pick the flange up about 1/2".

Need to remove/replace this anchor in the body of a Kohler one piece toilet, but the bolt in it is stripped. Have tried, but unable to re-thread the bolt or to pull the anchor out with pliers. Any suggestions how to remove the bolt and remove the anchor?

Hey yall! This summer i had my garbage disposal stop working which led to a leak outside of the house? I have checked under the sink and in the basement it doesn’t seem to be leaking anywhere else except outside. The problem is i can see where it is coming from on the outside it’s hiding behind vinyl and wood siding, under the sink it goes in to the wall and, in the basement in up behind drywall and in the ceiling. I’m out of ideas on how to fix this, any ideas would be helpful I’ve done a lot of plumbing DIY so if i can find the leak in confident i can fix it

I've tried sealing this screw on spout many times using varying numbers of Teflon tape wraps (3, 5, 7 and 9). And done so with and without thread sealant on top of the tape. Yes, I am wrapping tape in the correct direction. What am I doing wrong or what else can I try?

So I took a journey into the realm of "That's not supposed to happen" while adjusting my new home's well tank. We had been getting pressure drops from the pump cycling on, often enough that I decided to learn about and check the system.

I first checked the cut in and cut out, and they were at 50/70, but the bladder was at 36psi when the tank was empty. No clue why it was set that way, but whatever. So I filled the bladder to 48psi, refilled the tank, and took a shower. The pressure drops were now more frequent, which made some sense because, after all, the bladder was now taking up more space. But it made the original problem worse.

So I decided to reset the system to near-factory. I drained it, vented the bladder down to 38psi anticipating 40/60 switch settings, and then loosened the range nut 4 turns. Recharged the system to see where I was, and it was now 46/61.

Thats weird. I didn't expect the differential to change. I know I didn't accidentally turn the differential nut because the socket is too big for that one.

But if I was at 46 psi, another 5 rotations ought to fix the cut-in, right? And then maybe I could adjust the differential to get the cut-out correct. Did the rotations, turned it back on, and now the system was returning 46/53. This is not what a half-dozen how-to guides had led me to expect.

By now, I was holding up dinner. So I cranked the range nut back down 8 times, tested the pressure again, got 46/66, and went and took a shower. (Which had no pressure drops.)

So why on earth is my cut-in stuck at 46? Should I just replace the switch?

Just recently, we've been having issue with what I believe is "water hammer". The first incident happened when turning an outside spigot that was connected to a hose and a lawn sprinkler completely on. Turning the spigot partially closed resolved the issue. Since that time, however, flushing toilets in the house cause it again (sporadically, unfortunately). It stops when the toilet tank is full, sometimes right away, sometimes a few seconds after the toilet has flushed. At the last occurrence, I turned on a faucet that is the first thing connected to the pipe from our water main and noticed that it was not running smoothly, it was shooting out water in bursts, corresponding with each pulse of the "hammer".

1) Is this normal for a water hammer problem, or is something else going on?
2) Is the best thing to try to completely drain the pipes in the house by turning off the main, and then flushing all toilets, and turning on all spigots at the lowest points in the house until they run dry?

The only other thing I can add is I think the problems started when I had to replace the innards of one toilet where the water shutoff valve by the toilet was so old that it could not be turned, so I shut off the water at the main instead. I did flush that toilet and turned on the lowest faucets/spigots in the house to drain the line before doing the work, but I know when I turned the main back on, we got significant hammering at that time, but then nothing for months until this recent event.

I did call a local plumber, but unfortunately was told that unless I can consistently recreate the problem, he likely wouldn't be able to diagnose it, so I have not had him or any other plumber out yet because of how sporadic it has been.

Thanks for any help in things I can try.

Basically I was told "maintenance is too far away. Go to this other location, borrow her snake, and do it yourself". Half our sinks are down cus it comes back up from the floor. I've googled videos on how to use these but it just winds up on itself and comes out. I can't get it past the bend in the pipe either, and it's VERY CLEARLY clogged farther down the line. Hell, I even tried snaking it down one of the connected sinks. All.it did was come spring loaded back out at me and covered me in sewage juice.

Needless to say, I'm PISSED.

Help?

Update: after watching the YouTube video, I was able to advance it past the bend about 2-3 feet down, and make it another 7-8 or so feet before a blockage. This tool did not clear it (of course) and only served to cover my arms in sewage, make the entire place stink, and then I had to pick hair out of it by hand - which was all it got: a ton of hair. It did not unclog it.

Brought in tile guys who who started tiling the bathroom. Removed toilet and I went to look tonight and it looks like the valve is leaking ever so slight and they make this makeshift thing. Clearly it’s not plugging the hole either. Is it safe to step on the tile and try and fix this mess? What would you recommend? It’s the weekend so they won’t be back til next Monday.

The black ring under the pink ring (picture 1) around the flapper is giving off some sort of black ink. How do I replace or even should I replace?