Pro Handyman Blog

A customer was washing his car when a plumbing crisis occurred. He evidently was pulling on the hose to get a little more distance out of it when he pulled a little too hard and the hose faucet snapped off of the pipe. All that was left was a pipe sticking out of the wall running full blast onto the walkway. At least he had the wits to turn off the water at the street.

He started to panic when he saw the pipe sticking out. It was no longer round, but rather started to turn oblong before it snapped. He tried to squeeze the pipe back into round with pliers but that didn’t work.

Ultimately, the pipe had to be cut back until it could be worked with, meaning cutting it back until it was round again. If the pipe coming out of the wall is long enough, you may not have to cut into the wall, however, if the pipe snaps close to the wall you may have to open it and sweat a fitting onto it. You may be able to sweat a hose faucet (sweat fitting) onto it, or install a new hose faucet with a compression fitting.

Plumbing putty is a necessity when installing drain fixtures. Plumbing putty is a clay-like compound that is sandwiched between the sink and the drain flange. It is most commonly used when installing a drain assembly in a sink or when installing a collar for a new garbage disposal.

Plumbing putty comes in a plastic container. Scoop out some with your fingers and roll it into a long pencil-like snake. It should be just larger than the diameter of a pencil. Lay the snake of plumbers putty along the underside of the lip of the drain assembly. Pay special attention to where the ends come together. It is okay if the ends overlap, but make sure you do not have any gaps. If there is a gap in the plumbers putty you will have a leak. Push it around the perimeter so that it stays and set the assembly in the sink drain hole.

As you place the drain assembly in the hole, push slightly and hold it from moving. From under the sink, you will install a friction washer, a rubber washer, and finally the nut that holds it all in place. As you tighten the nut, you should see the plumbers putty squeeze out from under the lip of the drain assembly. This is a good thing. The squeeze-out should be uniform. If you have any area under the drain assembly that doesn’t have any putty squeezing out, I would remove it and re-install the putty completely around the drain assembly as you likely have a gap which will lead to a leak.

Imagine the shock when you find your water bill is double what it should be. Do you have a plumbing problem? Maybe. Several factors go into this. Did you drain and fill your pool last month? Are the correct meter readings on your invoice?

You can see that there are several possible explanations, but you need to get an answer as you may have a leak somewhere. Here are the steps I would take.

With no water running in the house (no toilets running, the icemaker is not filling the trays, the sprinklers are off, etc.) pull the cover off of your meter and look to see if the micrometer is moving (the micrometer is the tiny triangular shaped thing that moves if even the slightest amount of water passes the meter). If the micrometer is not moving, you likely had either a bad reading, or you filled the pool. It suggests that you did use the water you were charged for.

If the micrometer is moving, then water is passing through the meter and you are being charged for it. This is a concern. Look at the landscape first and see if there are muddy areas or areas of tall grass. This would suggest a landscape leak. Turn the anti-siphon valve off and go check the meter once again. If the meter has stopped moving, then your leak is somewhere past your anti-siphon valve in the landscape. If your meter is still moving after this, then it is time to worry. You may have a slab leak. Can you hear water running but find no evidence of it? Does the floor feel warm in a particular area? You can turn off the water supply valve at the water heater and recheck the meter again. If the meter has stopped, you likely have a slab leak past the water heater under the slab.

When fitting plumbing, particularly copper piping, you invariably will need to cut the pipe. Cutting copper piping will leave burrs on the end where you have made the cut. It’s a good idea to get rid of the burrs so that they will not interfere with joining the pipe and fittings together.

There are several methods of cutting the piping. You can use a hacksaw, although I don’t encourage this because not only will you get major burrs on the piping, but the cut won’t always be a nice square cut. As you move your hand back and forth, the blade will tend to wander off of the cut. I would use a pipe cutter. This is a tool that fits around the pipe and makes a nice square cut. It has guide rollers that keeps the cut square and as you roll the tool around the pipe, the cutting wheel gradually cuts into the piping. As you roll the tool around the pipe, you gradually tighten the cutting wheel and it cuts right through. The burr from this tool is around the inside perimeter of the cut, rather than at the exterior which is what you see when using a hacksaw.

To remove the inside burr, there is a reaming attachment on the tool that you simply insert into the pipe and rotate around. It quickly removes the burr. For the hacksaw burr, you can try emery cloth or even a metal file and sandpaper.

A plumbing leak at a sink trap can caused by several things. First, investigate the leak to make sure it is actually coming from the P-trap. You may find that the leak is coming from somewhere higher up than the trap and is just dripping from the trap since it is the lowest point on the drain piping. If you have determined the leak is from the trap, then you can unscrew the fittings on both ends of the trap and dump out the water into a bucket.

Inspect the trap for cracks, and look closely at the ends where it threads onto the joining piping. In many cases, the nut can be cross threaded and not properly sealed. This may be the case if the slip nut is very hard to unscrew and doesn’t unscrew smoothly. Screwing this slip nut carefully back on the pipe may fix it.

Also look at the washer to see if it is damaged. If it is split or damaged, it will allow water to pass and leak. Replacing this washer will fix the problem. By the way, you won’t need to use Teflon tape on the threads as these joints are not under pressure.

Obviously, if the P-trap is damaged or cracked, you will need to replace it.

I had a customer call for some advice on an easy plumbing job. I can’t blame him, why pay for something when you can do it yourself in 5 minutes (or less). This particular customer was moving and realized that the icemaker valve would not shut off…it had a slow dribble out of it. He said he cranked the handle down on the valve at the wall, but it still leaked. He was apprehensive about replacing the valve. I told him he could do a couple of things.

The valve in the wall usually has threads on it to connect by compression to the icemaker line. If you shut the water off to the house the leak will stop and you can work without being stressed that water is going to run all over the floor. With the water off, you can screw a mating cap onto the threads of the valve. You can wrap the threads with Teflon tape first and snug the cap down.

The other thing that comes to mind is to add a cap to the icemaker line itself, if it is copper or plastic. You can use a compression fitting on this one. Place the nut on the line first, then the copper ferrule and then the coupling. On the other side of the coupling will be the cap. Tighten it all down and turn the water back on to check for leaks.

If you have plumbing leaks coming from your shower head, determine whether the leak occurs when the shower valve is on or when it is off. That will give you direction on how to go about repairing it.

If your shower head leaks when the water is on , that is you have turned the water on to the shower, it is probably leaking at the connection at the shower arm. The shower arm is threaded at the end where is connects to the female fitting of the shower head. Unscrew the shower head at this connection and re-tape it. Wrap the threads three times with Teflon tape and screw the shower head back on.

If the shower head dribbles out of the end when the water is on, try removing the shower head and soaking it in some “CLR” or other product that dissolves minerals and scale. Otherwise, replace the shower head with a new one.

If your shower head leaks when the shower valves are off, you need to replace the shower cartridge, or stem and seats. This is a common job that will have to be repeated every few years depending on use and water hardness. Here is an article on  shower cartridge replacement.

Here is the desert we get many unique plumbing problems. The water here is harder than a tax collectors heart. Many of us here have water softeners to make getting out of the shower less itchy.

Lots of people have water softeners (aka water conditioners), but don’t know or can’t tell if they are working. To me it’s pretty easy to tell if I have soft water, but I can understand how some people can’t tell.

You can perform a simple test to determine if you have soft water. You need a small container with a lid ( a baby food jar works great), water, and 1 drop of liquid soap. That’s it. As far as the container, if you don’t have a baby food jar, you could use a canning jar or something along that size or less but it must have a lid.

Fill the jar half full of water and drop in 1 drop of liquid soap. I like dishwashing soap, but you can also use hand soap in a pinch. Use water from a bathtub or shower and not the kitchen sink, as water softener loops are typically plumbed to avoid the kitchen sink. Screw on the lid tightly and shake the jar like it owes you money. If you have suds in the top half of the jar you have soft water. If your water settles back down with no soap suds you have hard water.

This is what I would call an “acid test”, in that it is not going to tell you the degree of softness, but rather an unscientific determination of whether or not you have soft water.

There are going to be times when you have to replace a water valve, be it a ball valve or gate valve. Plumbing hint: use a ball valve. The design is far superior to that of the gate valve meaning it will work when you need it to. All this for only a few dollars more.

When soldering a valve onto a copper pipe, care needs to be taken so that you don’t damage the valve with the torch, specifically the heat of the torch.

When soldering the valve, (aka sweating copper), you certainly want a good connection, but you don’t want to damage any of the internal mechanisms. The heat of the torch is intense and so you must prepare the valve to avoid this heat buildup. The easiest way to do this is to open the valve to allow air flow.

To allow air flow for the ball valve, turn the handle so that it is in line with the valve, in other words, not perpendicular. For the gate valve, you want to turn the handle counterclockwise to lift the gate out and allow air flow. Here is an article on how to solder copper pipe. Always have a bucket of water nearby. It’s also good practice to dunk a rag in the water to cool the valve and piping down after you remove the torch.

When you notice water leaking from behind your refrigerator plumbing, most people immediately think that the fridge is bad…until they pull the unit away from the wall. In many cases, it is not the refrigerator that is leaking, but the icemaker line from the wall to the fridge.

Slowly pull the refrigerator away from the wall and look for the leak. It is easier to find the leak if you turn off the water, clean up the water on the floor, and then turn the water back on. It may be the valve at the wall, the icemaker line that carries water from the valve to the refrigerator, or the refrigerator itself. If you can trace the leak into the refrigerator, I would call in a service technician if you aren’t familiar with it.

If you can trace the leak to the valve or the line itself, it is probably going to be an easy repair. If the line is leaking, you can replace it with either copper, plastic, or a braided stainless steel line. My first choice would be the stainless steel line as they usually carry a 10 year warranty against bursting, and they simply screw onto the fittings at both the valve and the refrigerator. If you choose plastic or copper, you will need a compression nut and ferrule and tighten to secure.

If the valve is leaking, try tightening it slightly to see if you can get it to stop leaking. You can also try to replace the packing under the nut. At worst case, replace the valve after you have shut off the main water supply.