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I'm suddenly smelling sewer gas in a bathroom when the attic fan is on, and I can't figure out the source (and yes, I flushed :p ). We use the attic fan daily, and the smell just started today. Turn the attic fan on, and you get the sewer gas within a minute or two. Turn the fan off, and once...

One wall of my garage abuts a dead space under a stair landing and I want to make use of that space to install a utility sink (there's easy access to drain, vent and water in this dead space). I could open the wall and frame a niche for the sink -- but that would make the sink awkward to use...

New house, bare dirt back yard, and we have future plans for a BBQ and fire pit. I want to lay the PE gas line while I'm trenching for sprinklers (yes, I know the gas line gets buried deeper than the sprinklers :) ). I'll include a trace wire, and leave enough room at either end that the...

I have a shower drain in a new house that's consistently admitting sewer gas two days after its last use. We have 50% humidity, no heating or a/c running, and none of the other drains are doing this, including two guest baths that go weeks without having water run through them. The shower is...

My pool is plumbed in 2" copper. After 40 years, all but one of the brass gate valves has stripped it's stem, and of course, the manufacturer has gone out of business and I can't find a match to swap parts with. I've got four valves side by side, feeding into a manifold, and I'd like to...

I've got a mixer and several volume controls to rough-in (multi-head shower), and was surprised to see that there are no mounting bosses on the valve bodies. I can't simply hang the valves off the piping, as my supply is PEX and I had the wall framed with an extra wide bay to accommodate valve...

I'm building a cabinet front for a drop-in tub, and wondering if I should make it removable for the purpose of future plumbing access. The floor is slab-on-grade, and half the tub projects into an exterior bump-out, with interior walls bracketing the tub on boths sides where it projects into...

After countless hours of "discussion", customer finally landed on a Kohler faucet collection she liked, for lav's, shower with standard, rain, handheld and body sprays, and roman tub filler with hand spray. She's got a friend that was going to give her "better than wholesale" pricing, so I...

I've got a toilet flapper valve that's still leaking after replacing twice, with two different brands of flapper. It's a slow leak - like "drip-drip" every 10-15 seconds (I guess I could be more scientific about it and turn off the supply to see how long it takes to drain the tank :). After...

My sister's 7 year old house was plumbed w/ PEX and came with on-demand hot water -- but instead of spending the extra $30 worth of PEX to run a return loop, the builder used a crossover valve (which has failed). There's easy access to the lines in the attic, and we want to run a dedicated...

Will a pressure-balancing valve feed cold water to the hot water side when the hot water side is open? I had my water heater disconnected this weekend, with water off at the main supply. When I reconnected the water heater, I had the cold supply valve closed when I opened the main supply...

Late 40's house - replumbed to copper. Outside the service entrance, I've found a maze of buried new and old lines, with a number of copper and (out of service) galvanized lines laid across each other in direct contact. The galvanized lines show significant corrosion where they're in contact...

As part of a bathroom remodel, I'm replumbing with PEX and adding a recirc loop on the hot water. It's an L-shaped single-story ranch, with hot/cold supply in the garage, 50' from the two bathrooms I want to replumb (one at the corner of the L, and the second 10' down the "leg"). I'll run a...

As part of a remodel, I'm relocating my compressor. Before starting, I had my HVAC guy evacuate and cut/seal the lines. The framing's done and I'm ready to close up the walls, but my HVAC guy's out of town for two weeks. Can I put a stick of type L in the wall with 90's stubbing out top and...

Is it possible to split out a 110v branch from a 230v branch circuit? I'd like to put an exterior light and 15A receptacle near my A/C compressor, but it's a 120' run back to the panel, and access it difficult. I've got a 230v/50A circuit supplying the A/C compressor and the compressor only...

With a bathtub on a slab, is the trap typically left exposed or concreted over? I've already installed the (glued) trap, but I'm not sure whether I should box it in and leave it unconcreted, or go ahead and concrete over it, leaving just the stub-out. The tub will be in a platform, so...

-Slab-on-grade floor -toilet backs up to an exterior wall My vent stack/end-of-line clean-out will come up through the footing/slab. In a typical above-grade install, the closet bend would point back to the wall and T into the stack, like this- But how do I accommodate the requirement for...

How do vent lines get run under a slab? It's my understanding that a vent has to slope a minimum of 45º until it's 6" above the flood line, but I'm not sure how to achieve that with underslab lines. I'm planning a large walk-in shower, and the wall I'll vent up is the opposite direction...

We're doing a bump-out of our bathroom (slab floor) to install a roman tub. Is there any reason to not have the vent stub up out of the slab alongside the tub drain (but outside of the tub footprint), and then run horizontal the couple of inches into the wall before turning vertical to the...

I'm expanding a bathroom, and trying to figure out the easiest/best location for the vent stack. This is single-story, slab construction in SoCal (Orange County). The bath and toilet are in the new area, so drain routing is easy (no slab yet). The obvious place to put the vent stack would...