Northern Virginia Roll Call

The great American dream can be a real PIA with the constant up keep bullshit and shit that breaks all the time AC/Heat,plumbing,electrical etc: thank god i can fix most of this shit that breaks....

 

Thanks. Everything is working again. Temp fix on the main drain line until the weather warms a little and they can do a permanent fix. This makes three times this has happened where the drain froze and backed into the house, freezing a good foot under the house. The maintenance guy knows what the problem is, just needs to get management to approve the cost.

That ended up being why my supply was out. It froze atthe meter. I positioned a heat gun in there and closed the lid up. Within about 10 minutes the water was flowing again. I went to lowes after everything was fixed with the drain since that took longer, and bought a roll of R30 insulation. I unrolled it till the roll would fit into the opening, then crammed it down. Its filled to the top with about 3/4 of a roll of insulation, so hopefully that will help keep it from freezing up. If my drain hadnt been froze up last night I could have left a faucet on overnight and probably wouldnt have happened.

 

I now own a monster heater too. Runs on diesel or kerosene, i used diesel as it was more convenient to get. Kerosene was recommended for cleaner burns. And that thing gets friggin hot!

 

I think that is an incredibly valuable set of skills to have... my goal is to learn some of those skills as we start doing renovations to the house.

sad note: the guy sold the cap I knew it wouldnt last long at that price.

 

Sad day indeed.

 

Those kerosene/diesel heaters are great. I was working in an uninsulated kwanza hut last winter collecting test data. We were running two at the same time for a couple of weeks. The heaters we were running were burning around 10 gallons in 6-8 hrs if I remember right.

 

Thats good to know. I put 5 gallons in and only got half a tank. I only ran it a couple hours before we decided to crawl all the way up under there with the heat gun and melt the frozen pipe with direct rather than wait.

When that ice broke free, we had left the cap off the cleanout, and that shit went everywhere

 

The bigger of the two heaters had a 30 gallon tank, I think. It was on wheels and stook about 3 ft tall. The heater was at least 18" across.

 

Sounds like a monster. I looked everywhere for a heater, TSC in Manassas saved my butt. When i talked to the lady on the phone, she said all they had was 4 of the model i got. I asked her to save one for me. By the time I got there 3 of the 4 had been held by customers. Lots of peoples plumbing was tested this weekend. Sounds like lots failed.

Hell i stopped at burger king by the expo center for a breakfast croissant this morning on the way to TSC, and when I asked for a coke he said their drink machine was down cause their water line froze.

 

Yeah. I've been lucky in the pipe department with nothing freezing up. There was a meet in PA yesterday that I had been thinking of going to but decided not to because I'm getting over being sick and I slept late. They had to find a different restaurant because the planned place was closed due to a water line break.

 

I had a pipe in my old house break while I was on vacation. The pipes were ran through the roof. It was a combo of wood stove and electric heat. Obviously I was gone so the wood stove wasn't running. The power went out and the electric heaters didn't come back on. Came home to a waterfall coming out of my ceiling and 3-4 inches of water on the floor. Disaster.

 

Saw this LT 2nd Gen in Manassas yesterday.

 

Thankfully no frozen/busted pipes up here, but listening to y'alls trouble almost makes me feel somewhat guilty for spending my afternoon here...almost

 

Damn man. That's shitty.

 

Yeh it was terrible. And I didn't have renters insurance at the time so we had to live in the house while it was being repaired. Lesson learned.

 

That thing looks like a beast

 

Insullation isn't enough for pipes if it goes this low, I learned the hard way 2 years ago when my main burst.
I got this electrical wrap and it keeps things from stopping. It doesn't get very hot, but works.
It's basically an extension cord w/o a thermal barrier. Just wraps around the pipe and plug into the outlet.

 

Wish I could've got a better picture. It was beast.

 

Was there someone on here running Hankook Dynapro ATMs?

 

Wicked. Don't think I've seen this truck before.