Losing weight

Though it has absolutely NOTHING to do with plumbing, thought I’d share something I overheard while waiting in my doctor’s waiting room the other day. According to the program running on the TV in the waiting room (sorry I can’t give better credit than that), if you snack with your non-dominant hand, you will eat about 30% LESS than you would if you use your dominate hand!
I know this has nothing to do with plumbing or bathroom remodeling, but I just wanted to share. Make it a great day, and be a blessing!
RobM

Plumbing Tip: working with plastic

My wife and I had a dinner party this past Friday night.  During the party, some of my friends were commenting on our storage space in the basement (specifically about just how amazingly organized it was!) when another friend, seeing my exposed drain lines, pointed them out to another friend of ours and commented how he wished his had been primed like mine – that would have saved him three leaks in his own basement (his words, not mine).

If you’re working with plastic pipe, such as CPVC, it is important to prime your joints before using cement to solder them together.  There is a reason that the stores sell that “purple primer”, and it’s not just to make more money.  And just a side note, even though clear primer will work, codes will require that you use purple primer so that the inspector can verify that you have indeed primed your joints.  It is THAT important. Read more

Making ice in the walls?

Let’s go back to middle school science class.  Remember pouring water into the ice cube trays, all the way up to the top, and then waiting for them to freeze? What did you find when your teacher took those ice cube trays out?  The frozen cube was bigger than the tray it was sitting in, remember?

That’s because water expands when it freezes.  So, how does this apply to household plumbing?  I mean you’re not running ice cubes through your lines, right?  Well, you actually might be if your supply lines run through an outside wall.  During the winter time, it is not uncommon for our temperatures to get below freezing on any given evening, sometimes even during the day – brrrrrr…..  Read more

Compressed under pressure

Sometimes when working with pipes and supply lines, you don’t need to solder a cutoff valve – you can just use a compression fitting.  These are very handy and are very common on lavatory/sink supply lines and toilet supply lines.  You simply slide the nut and compression ring onto the copper line coming from the wall (in that order) and then tighten the nut against the compression fitting which forces the compression ring into the cutoff valve and prevents water from leaking through the fitting.

1) Don’t use pipe compound or plumbers putting in this joint.  It doesn’t need it and you might cause a leak instead of preventing one!

2) Each time you disconnect the cutoff valve (not very common), you will need to replace the compression ring and cut off just a bit of the copper pipe since the pressure of the tightened nut causes the pipe to change shape just a bit.  Eventually you might have too short a piece of copper to keep doing this.  The good news is that it is not too common to have to change your cutoffs.

Quit moving that glue

Ever tried to glue something together (maybe that broken figurine before anyone notices) and get just a little bit of the glue on your fingers?  And just when you think you’ve got that figurine head firmly attached, you realize that unless you move your finger, your hand will have a permanent figurine growth.  So you move your fingers which moves the figurine head and, snap, it comes off again. These things are impossible to try and fit together on the run! Read more

Tennessee Re-Bath has a Facebook page

Well, call us old foggies, but we just didn’t want to be the first one’s out there with a Facebook page.  Of course, we didn’t want to be the last ones, either!

So Tennessee Re-Bath is on the web.  Well, technically we’ve been on the web a while.  But now we’re on the Facebook.  Oh, I know, my son (12 years old) tells me all the time that it’s not “the Facebook”, it’s just “Facebook”.  Kinda like you don’t say “the Walmart” or “Walmarts”.  Well, maybe you do – but you get the idea! Read more