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  1. Gellfex

    Installing a sump pit in a slab that gets pressurized by leaky sewer in a way it won't pop out?

    You don't seem to have read my OP. The water is not coming from inside my building. The street main itself is leaking into the street fill and then under my foundation. A utility crew ran a camera through and told me it is full of cracks and offsets but that nothing will be done until it collapses!
  2. Gellfex

    Installing a sump pit in a slab that gets pressurized by leaky sewer in a way it won't pop out?

    The sewer issue is not inside my property, so raising the lines would solve nothing. Nor is there even a front yard! It's a city rowhouse.
  3. Gellfex

    Installing a sump pit in a slab that gets pressurized by leaky sewer in a way it won't pop out?

    My rowhouse street sewer is incontinent, and charges the street fill so every crack in my basement slab squirts. Not much I can do till the city replaces the 150 year old brick sewer. So I have pumps. I want to install a sump pit, but when I look at commercial ones I fear the pressure on that...
  4. Gellfex

    Found an old cleanout hole cut in a 4" cast iron riser, how best to close temporarily?

    Well for those who enjoy a good schadenfreude gloat, here you go. The damn pipe is cracked completely from the hub a few inches below the top of the tile backsplash to ceiling of the second floor! I excavated this out today my plumber is coming tomorrow, hopefully. Dealing with this in a quick...
  5. Gellfex

    Found an old cleanout hole cut in a 4" cast iron riser, how best to close temporarily?

    I was including the leak problem in the 2nd graph. But today I ran a camera up from that hole, and there's not the blockage I expected. It looks like I'm going to be tearing out the cast iron from at least midwall of the 2nd floor on down, and having to pull the granite countertop and cabinets...
  6. Gellfex

    Found an old cleanout hole cut in a 4" cast iron riser, how best to close temporarily?

    The cast iron isn't actually rotten, those holes were cut! And I don't know what is actually going on with the leak yet. To gain access for your plan would require me to either rip out a recent kitchen counter and tile backsplash, or the recent tile tub surround on the other side. That makes...
  7. Gellfex

    Found an old cleanout hole cut in a 4" cast iron riser, how best to close temporarily?

    So as part of trying to solve a 4" cast iron leak disaster, I discovered that a hole had been cut sometime before I bought the building. It had been epoxied, taped over and painted. There also appears to be another hole in the elbow above it! What is the best plan for dealing with these...
  8. Gellfex

    Warranties: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

    I know this thread is old, but seemed a good place to share my recent story. Thursday night a 75 gal tank went in a 3 family rental house. It was a Kenmore with a 12 year warranty that hadn't hit it's 10th birthday. So I contacted Sears on Friday AM. They tell me they'd send somebody to look at...
  9. Gellfex

    Water Ridge faucets and Costco???

    I've installed at least a dozen WR faucets, and had few problems. I just called them for a 6 year old kitchen unit that the swing has frozen, and they're sending a new faucet. Can't really ask for more than that. I had American Standard give me a hard time and refuse to send a cartridge because...
  10. Gellfex

    need to reattach roof drain leader to sealed standpipe "mystery drains"

    Thanks hj, but what's the story on how it's trapped?
  11. Gellfex

    Why don't gas water heaters have dampers to reduce standby losses?

    Really interesting post. I've been at war with standby losses on my own indirect, I've blanketed it, insulated with 3/8 poly and used both loops and traps nipples to cut the standby. My next project is to put in a programmable thermostat that has a wider hysteresis than the stock Triangle one ...
  12. Gellfex

    Why don't gas water heaters have dampers to reduce standby losses?

    Thanks Terry. That looks great, but has quite a price premium over a standard tank. It's too bad there's no retrofit device. I use a water heater to provide hydronic & domestic for my little rentals, and wish it were more efficient, but I don't actually pay the bills (the average monthly total...
  13. Gellfex

    Why don't gas water heaters have dampers to reduce standby losses?

    I tried searching, and came up with nothing here, and google got a reference to an aborted non-electric product from the mid 90's http://www.homeenergy.org/show/article/id/1319. Is it only that the standard gas model has no electric components to control a flue a damper? surely that would be...
  14. Gellfex

    Vent question, no room to do it right, lesser of 2 evils?

    Of course what you say makes perfect sense in our society run by, and for, lawyers. What's interesting is it doesn't seem to go nuclear when a contractor here gets caught. From all the stories I've heard from friends, and contractors who have worked for me, they just have to pull the permits and...
  15. Gellfex

    Vent question, no room to do it right, lesser of 2 evils?

    Tom, putting aside if we can the issue of a non-pro like myself doing the work, and just speaking as a customer, what do you make of the fact that most of the tradesmen here do their best to avoid pulling permits if they can, doing so only if the owner insists? I'm not making this up. Just one...
  16. Gellfex

    Vent question, no room to do it right, lesser of 2 evils?

    Absolutely. Permit cost isn't the issue. As I've said, I have no interest in doing anything sub-code.
  17. Gellfex

    Vent question, no room to do it right, lesser of 2 evils?

    I admitted I don't know how to test a 2" vent. Assuming the joints are tight I can't see how it fails unless it's a long run improperly pitched. Not possible in this case where the run from riser to the stack is less than a foot. Triple testing gas work? Maybe where you live but certainly not...
  18. Gellfex

    Vent question, no room to do it right, lesser of 2 evils?

    Tom, my god, you're correct!! I really don't have a clue how to test a vent line! Silly me, I've always thought the fact that in most circumstances the kitchen sink would probably drain just fine down a 2" with NO vent makes the failure of a vent hard to detect. I do pressure test hydronic...
  19. Gellfex

    Vent question, no room to do it right, lesser of 2 evils?

    FWIW, I did hold a general license for a while, but then the laws were changed here, and a state rather than local license was required, with a much larger bond, and I stopped renewing as I did not have enough work to do to justify it. You can't get a casual license for plumbing and electric...
  20. Gellfex

    Vent question, no room to do it right, lesser of 2 evils?

    Thanks hj, that's sweet and clear. I had actually asked for something like that, calling it a M-M thread to glue adapter and describing it, but neither I nor my vendor thought of doing what you describe. Possibly they didn't have 2" threaded PVC nipples. Thanks for appreciating that I'm here to...
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