Home Improvement Today?

The best ____ know how to hide their mistakes!

 

My HVAC guy makes me sleep better at night

 

Putty and Paint will make a Carpenter what he ain’t old guy told me that years ago, always stuck with me

 

So the other person in the house just took a shower with everything in bypass and said the water was actually better. I know the water heater still had some softened water in it, but they don't like really hot showers. Guess I'll see later tonight. Honestly might not even need a water softener. I'll definitely have to install a stand alone water filter as they were using the softener as one. Hmm, decisions...

 

Not a bad looking counter top for a couple of pieces of A/C plywood and a 2x4 . I’m just trying to make an old bar look decent. Formica was free, a buddy of mine has a counter top business

 

definitely get the water tested. lots of paid and free services for that. a ton of it comes down to your current usage.

my brothers house, the previous owner was an older married couple for 30 years. he passed 15 years before that, so it was just her for 15 years. when he got the place, he didn't need a softener, but after a few years with two people using water, and then adding some kids to the mix, a softener was later needed.

 

I'll definitely get some test strips. Last nights shower was honestly not that bad. Better than the last house with city water. Didn't have that slimy feel that softened water has, so that was an interesting feeling after living here 3 years. Gonna remove the old softener system and install a simple sediment filter and rock it for a bit.

 

Well now I'm going to get one of these. Double checked the basement and did some more investigation. Water went under the wall and under the vinyl plank in the next room. Noticed the rug was very damp all around and a bookshelf made out of MDF is definitely ruined on the bottom. I hope to Hell I don't have to rip up flooring. Turned up the humidifier thing I have and I guess I'll have to move all the stuff in that area

 

Usually that means soft water

 

Ugh
My basement is a pain in the ass . I stress when we get a winter thaw or too much rain . When I bought the house in 1993 there was a water mark on the concrete basement wall at waist height. There is a large sump in a pit that works pretty good but I did buy one of those big Honda trash pumps . Used during Hurricane Irene . I have poured concrete pads over the years but as you know you can’t stop water . Replaced stairs once so far because they rotted at the bottom. Fill cracks with hydraulic cement . Constant battle. When the county did the road over in front of my house they put huge French drains under the shoulder which helped somewhat . It is an actual flood plain across from my house less than 100 yards away . Back yard goes up hill into a field which has springs in it also . I did do some trenching but this spring we are going to put an actual French drain across the entire width of the back yard . It’s all ice back there right now .

 

Luckily for me I don't normally have water problems, even the sump pit stays dry.

This is all self inflicted. I heard the water softener do a regen Wednesday morning at 3:30am when I woke up for work. I can old assume this has been going on since Wednesday night till Saturday evening. Moved the furniture and carpet and the vinyl plank doesn't seem squishy or bowed up. That carpet rug was definitely holding moisture though. Going to let everything air out for a week and go from there.

 

Replaced my garage door rollers with some Amazon nylon jobbers along with some white lithium grease on the tracks. In the past if you opened the garage, inside the house it sounded like a car was crashing into the building.

Sucker FLIES now. I don't have a power opener so when I gave it a test open to see the noise level, I flung it open so hard it smashed into the rear stops. So much less resistance and my goodness is it quiet.

Went from metal on metal worn bearings and no grease on track to nylon, greased, new bearings and lubed the pulleys. 10 pulleys and tub of grease I am in this for only about 30 bucks and I'm pleased.

No pics or vids because I did this on my lunch break and wanted to just get it done.

 

If you can pull one of the planks easy enough, it would help to put a box fan on a milk crate firing into the opening to encourage evaporation in the area

 

Alright, time for another @RustyGreen education special. I had no issues yesterday and I woke up early for work today and had no running water. Zero. I went downstairs and saw water on the floor and a slow drip from the the Resideo BP900 backflow preventer was leaking. I turned everything off and left for work while the wife called her FIL to come look. Sounds like the backflow preventer failed and was causing the issue. Does that make sense? I was surprised to hear that could make me lose water pressure in the house but again, not my area of expertise!

 

@Clark27 - I have a backflow preventer on my sprinkler system and when I fire it up every spring, if I don't throw the shut off valve to it all the way (because I don't like hammering the system) it leaks until I do. I can only assume it's because it needs enough head pressure to seal and operate correctly.

But I'm no plumber.

 

The backflow preventer is pretty much two check valves with a chamber in between.

The ones we had in industry were for 2" pipe and weighed about 100 pounds. The water company required us to have a certified inspector test it every year. If there was a problem they were able to be repaired with new seals, etc.

Yours is only about $50 for a new one, easy enough to change, then you can tear into the old one and see what happened.

This is on your incoming water line correct? City water or a well?

Extra credit reading:
https://valveman.com/blog/what-is-a...41il8uu2PbaohxX7BJZEKAYfIYMqG64nsyetElK6Q7sRH

 

You're exactly right, mine was just under 50 bucks from SupplyHouse. The weird part to me is I replaced this exact part with a new one about 16 months ago since the first one was old (remember we are moving into a house that was unoccupied for a bit) and had a small leak. I am surprised to see a new part fail within this short (in my mind) time frame. My father in law inspected the part today and said it looked fine visually. I might tear it apart a bit more and look a little closer. We had hard water on our pre-purchase home inspection. I did all new PEX lines including two filters in relay and then a water softener system before the water even gets anywhere so I have tried to mitigate any avoidable issues. Any thoughts on the failure in that time frame and other things to look into? I'll be busy reading the link you posted in the mean time haha.

EDIT -- We are on well water. No city/town water in my area. Well line comes in the basement, goes to a large Exrol pressure tank, goes to the filters and softener I mentioned above and then goes off to feed the house and boiler. This is by the boiler feed. I will shoot a picture again!

 

It seems many parts these days suffer from early failure.

If they can get it to the end user for less than $50 it probably isn't made with the finest of material and micrometer tolerances either.

 

Chinesium