Forum Archive: Plumbing

We think we may have figured out the sewage smell in basement, but I am a little confused. When we open up the floor there are several pipes: one is a large vent line which goes outside, two sewer lines going into ground both have threaded caps, and what is confusing is there is a large pipe that appears to be connected to the drain hole just outside the basement. Within that drain pipe there is a flap that I think goes to the main sewer, is this some kind of rainwater overflow flap made to open if our drain gets too much water so that some can go directly to the city line? I think this is where the smell may be coming in. We are going to try to replace the 5 inch bolted cap that covers the top of the drain line to see if that helps, but it seems difficult to get a good seal as it is not threaded. Any ideas?

My small stacked washer/dryer is located inside a cubby. The only way to get to the electric outlet and the water valves is by pulling out the washer, getting under the dryer and hoping that the person trying to get to the valves has long arms. I had an appliance repairman here who spent 10 minutes trying to get access.He told me I would never be able to do it. I am wondering what others in my situation have done. I am thinking of hiring someone to cut the sheetrock behind the unit. I think I can access the valves from the other side of the sheetrock (which is a closet). Please advise and if you know someone who could do the job you suggest, I’d appreciate that too!

A few months ago we had a sewage smell in one of our basement rooms. Never could resolve it, but it eventually went away. Now it is back and we don’t know where it is coming from. We have checked the seals in the pipes under the floor and they seem ok. The smell is only in the basement room at the front of the house. Just don’t understand where it is coming from. Who should I call to investigate?

Hello,
we own our house, it’s custom built, 17 years old and in excellent shape.
We used to have water damages in the house ALL the times over the last 78 years, due to bad copper pipes that had curosion, tiny pin wholes and started leaking through the ceilings. Over the last 7 years we had about 18x water damage.
3 years ago we changed all copper pipes in the house and exchanged them with Pax pipes.
Now we have water damage again, in the family room (right where we had it originally).
Water was building up and within 1 hour about 3 big buckets of water kept gushing out.
We turned off the main water in the basement and half an hour later it stopped.
The plumber came the next day and didn’t find the source. He has been here now several times and we just can not find where it came from.
Above the family room is the master bathroom.
The toilet was checked and is okay and did not overflow on that day.
The shower is used since that day several times a day and does not leak. The two sinks were checked as well as the bathtub and shower steamer, nothing.
We even had people in the attic and check the roof.. nothing.
On the day of the leak it was not raining and since it has rained quite a bit, nothing.
Since the plumber came and we turned the main water back on nothing has leaked.
He even doubled the pressure in the pipes and left it like this for 7 hours, nothing.

We are just puzzled and frustrated.
We have open torn ceiling since three weeks now and no source of water is found.

Does anybody have a suggestion?

Thanks, Evangelina

We are renovating our 900sf garden level apartment which is in a 4-unit co-op building. The building was an SRO prior to becoming a co-op in the 80′s. Our apartment has two means of egress, through the front door (under stoop) and out the back into the garden. There is no common stairwell on our floor (unoccupied cellar below us is only accessible via outside hatch).

The apartment has two sprinkler heads in the entry area from when (I assume) there used to be a common stairwell on our floor. The sprinklers are no longer required technically since we have two means of egress and no common stair, right? We’re certainly not going to get rid of them, but do we need to follow code with them (i.e. distance from walls, etc)?

Has anyone put in a whole house filtration system? Is this even a useful concept, and if so, are there any particularly good ones?

I guess the other option is to put a filter system just in our kitchen, but I was wondering about all the options.

Our building is located on 8th Avenue near the highest point in Park Slope. Water pressure entering our basement tops out at about 40 psi. Wondering if this is typical for the area?

Bought it for a powder room but it doesn’t fit. Will take best offer.

jenabrams [at] mindspring.com

Can any plumbers out there help? I currently have an A O Smith gas tank hot water heater model PGXT 50 (246 series) and I’d like to know which of the current models is close to that. The XGV Conservationists or the GC Pro max line?