Vanquished!

"I have vanquished the drain!"

This was Jake's proud announcement this afternoon.  We were having trouble with the drain in the kitchen sink, which came to our attention because my Mom noticed it.  Well, what she noticed was all the wet in the cabinet under the sink, and also that it was the fault of the sink drain (not the faucet).  FYI, my Mom will make sure that something is broken find something that is broken if she stays at your house.  Just ask my brother's garbage disposal, freezer, and washing machine.  Yikes.  She has quite a track record.

And thank goodness for this blog, for it is by the magic of searching the blog that I discovered that my Mom was suspiciously also here the previous time we had sink trouble (though that was with the faucet, in 2007).

But seriously, we are glad she noticed it.  The situation under the kitchen sink has always been a bit, well, suspicious. I really wish I had taken a picture of it before, but rest assured, there was a strange "venting" situation involving a piece of rubber tubing that was cinched off with a clamp.  Just cinch it up.

Thanks to the internets, our friends at Ace Hardware, our neighbor Lisa, and our handy friend Matt, Jake was able to get all the information he needed to take the drain out of the sink and put in a new one.  The one he was removing, however, was not really exactly like the ones that appear on the internets, which are, well, new and easy to attach and detatch.  While removing the old one, something broke into something else, and, well, there was need for a hacksaw.  I realize that a hacksaw isn't typically a tool one uses in plumbing, but in our house it is.  One of our previous (thus far undocumented) Adventures in Plumbing (TM) involved the simple removal of a shower head, which ended with the shearing off of a pipe, which required a call to an Professional Plumber to fix.  (Happened on a Friday afternoon, after business hours, of course.  We waited until Monday for non-emergency plumbing hours.)

But Jake has emerged victorious from this Plumbing Adventure, and without recourse to a Professional Plumber at all.  Three cheers for Jake.  He has vanquished the drain.

In other news of vanquishing, I have just sent off the article that I have been working on; it was my main goal of the summer to get it completed.  And it's still July!  I am very pleased.

And in other, non-vanquishing, though also awesome news, Lucy has begun ukelele lessons.  We're all very excited about this development.  More details in an upcoming post.  But for now, here is a Conversation with Lucy (TM) that Jake got to overhear at the lesson:

Lucy: My mom plays the violin.

Marieke (her ukelele instructor): That's right! She mentioned that.

Lucy: Well, she's not good at it.

Wow, kid, thanks for the vote of confidence.  I've been vanquished by my own child.

Oh, and if you'd like to read about Lucy's ukelele lesson from her teacher's point of view, you can read about it here:
https://storytosong.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/lets-play-ukulele/
(She asked for our permission to write about it, and we were delighted to see what she did!)

So it took us a few years

But we have finally, finally finally fixed this situation:

http://thischarmingoldhouse.blogspot.com/2006/12/whhhhhaaaaat-part-2.html

Yes, way back in 2006, we documented one of the many oddities of the house, specifically the hole in the floor of the upstairs bathroom.  It was one of those things that bothered us, but that we didn't know how to fix, and that wasn't a hugely pressing issue.  But now, lo these many years later, it is fixed.  And there was great rejoicing in the land.

Our awesome next-door-neighbor and all around handywoman, Liza came over and fixed that thing right up.  Here's what it looks like now:

We also had her install a new faucet.

Next up: ELECTRICITY!

First, we had this box underneath the cabinet in the kitchen. Jake had installed it when the previous under-cabinet lighting fixture (which included an outlet) died.  It's where we plug in our kettle, so it's a pretty important one. 

 Lisa fixed it up with a more appropriate exterior-mount box and put it on the wall, in addition to tacking up the on/off switch for the undercabinet light so it's not so hard to find.  Genius!

She also moved the light switch that turns on the overhead light/fan in the kitchen so that now you can turn it on when you walk through the door.  I know, I know, seems pretty basic, but previously, you had to walk into the kitchen, around the stove, and over to the microwave nook to turn on the light.  So now, when you come to our house, you'll be able to turn on the kitchen light without a map!  We're still fumbling over it, though, and will be for the foreseeable future, I'm sure.

And then, our favorite piece: a new cabinet!Hooray!

Project Underway! Basement Bathroom Actualization

So you may or may not know that there's a bathroom down in our basement.  It features in the background of several previous project posts, such as this one and this one.  It's a bit sketchy:

It has a toilet and a sink.  The toilet was leveled with a shim in form of a paint stirrer.  (Awesome!) Check it out:

It's an older style, with an enormous tank that was running a lot, so we actually turned off the water leads to it to conserve water.  This was usually fine, except on the rare occasion when an unknowing guest, or Lucy, used the toilet.  Ooops.

The sink leaks, and when I asked a plumber about it, he said it was not worth fixing the faucet; we should get a whole new sink set up.  Also, it was previously the drain for the washing machine (as detailed in the posts I linked above).  The faucet is set back very close to the basin, so it's actually not a great design for hand-washing. 

So this project has been on the back burner for a long time, since we do indeed have two other bathrooms.  But a few things have propelled this project forward: 1) we bought a third toilet back when we were replacing the other ones 2) our friends Matt & Mary gave us a new sink they had inherited [the tall white thing beside the sink in the photo above is actually the pedestal of the new sink] 3) we wanted to make more use of the backyard, and having a handy bathroom might make that even nicer.  Oh, and 4) our neighbor, Lisa, was available for some projects!

So the project is underway today.  She's taking out the old toilet, checking to make sure things are OK down there, then putting in a new one.  Then she'll take out the old and put in the new sink.  She's going to put down flooring plywood, and then go over it with some vinyl tiling I bought.

I am SO excited.

Updates as I have them.

Woo hoo!

Update: 3:40pm

Check it out:

Here's the latest status on the project:

--->Old toilet and sink are gone, gone gone.

--->Water intake valves (3 -- 2 for sink, 1 for toilet) replaced with shiny new, easy-to-use accessible ones.

--->Toilet drain confirmed secure (relief!  we weren't sure -- it's an OLD pipe, but a solid one)

--->Wood beneath and around toilet confirmed secure and not damaged by water or critters.

--->Evidence of critters, in the form of SQUIRRELS confirmed.  Not ideal, but not posing imminent harm to plumbing or the house.  Further investigation necessary.  Possible "re-location" plan may need to be developed.  We're not even sure if the critter is still in residence.

So hey, most of that is good news.  Liza is putting down new flooring plywood right now and then will paint it.  Tiling happens next.

Stay tuned!

UPDATE: 10pm: IT'S DONE!

We're just delighted.  Liza stayed until 10pm just because she wanted to get the job done.  Awesome.

I need to do a bit of clean up tomorrow, but hooray!

Of course, now the new floor and new fixtures make the rest of it all (the walls) look worse.....perhaps another upgrade will be in our future.

Cheers!

Plumbing Triumph! New Toilet!

I've just had the pleasure of using our brand-new toilet! Woo hoo! Jake installed it himself today, and it only required two trips to the hardware store. The second one wasn't even his fault (the bolts that were supposed to be in the box with the wax seal weren't there)! We're delighted, and this should soon have an impact on our water usage here.

Meanwhile down in the basement, the dryer had (we're not sure when) become separated from the vent to the outside. Blargh. Jake also re-fastened that connection. Jake is now having a duly earned beer after conquering major house fix-ups!

There's lots more to say, particularly about our trip to PA last weekend, but we're a bit crazy around here with stuff to do, so I'll try to get to it soon.

Project Plans

Check out the new delivery in our dining room:

Yup, that's a new toilet. Not, it's not going to stay in the dining room. It will replace the one in the downstairs bathroom that was damaged in our mini-tornado (also, it wasn't very water-usage-efficient, so it seems a good thing to replace in any case). Jake ordered it online, and we hope to install it soon. Or at the very least before, say, we host a large dinner party in the dining room. You may recall some of our previous plumbing adventures (just click on the "plumbing" tag for the blog and all the lovely stories will appear); we're hopeful that we can accomplish this one in-house. Perhaps with the assistance of Master Plumber John? Or Local Expert on All House Things, Matt?

Other than that, we're in the middle of the seasonal transition period. Jake has taken out the downstairs air conditioners (upstairs ones, too, soon!). The grass in the back yard has started to sprout, too!

In other news totally not related to plumbing or our house at all, tonight I'm going to my first debate! Exciting. It's the Democratic Primary debate for our U.S. Senate seat (the one currently held by Scott Brown). We're particularly excited about Elizabeth Warren. I'll try to post after the debate with some reflections.

Also, Plumbing: Shower mystery

Oh, and lately we've been neglectful about documenting various home projects/problems. Mostly this is because we've been too busy. But this morning, we were shocked to find that our upstairs shower doesn't work. At least, it doesn't spray any water, which, to me, is really the essence of what a shower needs to do. We don't know what the cause is, so further investigations will be necessary.

Jake promised to tackle the problem tomorrow. If you're a regular reader, you'll recall that previously, such a project ended with calling a professional. I just realized after looking through past posts that I don't think I ever documented this one. Let's just say it involved the shearing off of a pipe. Fun. Let's hope this adventure is less, uh, adventurous. We'll start by not waiting until after 5pm to start the project.

Updates soon. Until then, we'll try not to smell too much.

Update: Friday, 12/10: The shower is fine. After Jake collected his tools to prepare for the plumbing battle, Lucy wanted to know all about what he was doing. So he brought her into the shower to show her what was wrong and how the shower is supposed to work. While doing so, he noticed a tiny lever on the shower head itself that we had never noticed before. Turns out, the shower head had an on/off switch, and it had fallen into "off." So he put it back to "on," and it's fixed. Hooray! Best plumbing story ever.

Plumbing

Regular readers will know that among my (many) worries, plumbing is really pretty high on my list of concerns. There's nothing that gets me worried like a scary story of plumbing gone wrong, and I've lost some sleep over some of our own various plumbing concerns. So last month, when I started hearing a slightly distressing "glug glug glug" coming from the un-used washing machine drain in the bathroom, I was on alert. I convinced myself that it wasn't a big deal, and tried to ignore it. But every time the upstairs bathroom toilet was flushed, there it was: the big "glug glug glug," which in the past meant clogged main drain, which means a call to the plumber and so on.

This morning, in addition to the usual "glug glug glug," there was a smell. A smell wafting from the washing machine drain. This made me think that it was possible that our studor vent in the attic was somehow malfunctioning, sending the nasty toxic sewer gases back into the system and into the drain pipe. But Jake came up with a simpler possibility to check first. You see, the drain in question is one that's in the wall where a washing machine was once hooked up (not since we've lived here). This drain, presumably, has a "P-trap" which holds water and makes a seal so that the gases don't come up through the pipe. But since the drain is NEVER used, no water goes down, and thus, eventually, the water sitting there eventually evaporates. Thus, nasty noxious gases can escape. So the simple test was to pour some water down into the drain to see if we could fill the "P-trap" and stop the gas.

Guess what.

It worked!!!!!

Not only did it stop the smell, the "glug glug glug" has also stopped! I'm so pleased! Plumbing stories rarely end so happily.

Notes & Promotions

Notes:

We did our Root-X application over the weekend, so (hopefully) our sewer pipes are root-free. Fingers crossed. Maybe we should get one of those fancy cameras down there and see for ourselves how bad the situation is.

For those of you who have been trying to keep up with Lucy's language development, please note that we have not been updating her "lexicon" lately. She is saying so many things that it's hard to keep up. She now knows the name of her BFF, Ruth, (she says "Oooth!") and repeats just about anything you say. On St. Patrick's day, I mentioned that she looked very "preppy" in her polo-shirt dress and cardigan, and I heard "preppy! preppy!" Nice. Today she said "toaster." She also calls all kids she sees "bay-be!" although we've tried to clarify the difference between babies and kids.

Promotions:

If any of our readers are living in the Lowell area, we'd like to recommend joining our CSA: New Entry Sustainable Farming. We get a huge array of delicious vegetables from them all summer long. Check out their site here: http://nesfp.nutrition.tufts.edu/worldpeas/csa.html Their FAQ is here.

For our fellow home-owners, we'd recommend you check out the new government mortgage program here: http://www.makinghomeaffordable.gov/ to find out if you're eligible for a refinancing plan. They also have info on how to find out if Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac hold your loan (it turns out Freddie has ours). Looks like the economic stimulus package will be helping 83 Durant. Nice!

We're also fans of the American Antiquarian Society, where Lucy has just Adopted a Book! The book that will be adopted in her name is Little Marian; it's a children's book in the "Nettie Lightfoot" Series. It was written by Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743-1825), who was also the author of a significant piece on the Gothic. So Lucy's book adoption is fitting in many ways!
You may recall that Lucy adopted a book last year, too.

That's all for today. A belated Happy St. Patrick's Day to all!

Plumbing OK...or is it?

In truth, it does seem that things are OK with our plumbing. No weird noises, plenty of hot water, and all the draining seems to be happening in an appropriately speedy way.

However, the youngest member of our household -- Lucy, at age 14+ months -- has recently revealed a deep-seated fear of the bath. For the past week (or more), during every attempt to give her a bath, she has screamed her tiny head off. Like in a serious wailing and completely terrorized (and terrorizing) manner. We have no clue what has prompted this reaction, as, up until this abrupt change in attitude, she was thrilled with the bath, swimming around and playing with her toys and generally gleeful about the bath. In fact, she'd scream when we took her OUT of the bath.

Does she know something we don't? Is there a boggart in the tub? Is she some sort of plumbing problem early-warning alarm? What could cause such a reaction? And, perhaps more importantly, how can we get her over this? She needs to take baths. We tried a shower today (necessary because of last night's unfortunate stomach bug) and it, too, was a disaster. How do we get this kid back on the bath?

Of Plungers

As a footnote to my earlier post, this evening (post-posting that previous post) we began playing a new game on the Wii that our good friend Sone gave us. The game is Rayman Raving Rabbids, and it involves an elaborate story line wherein some very strange looking rabbit-type creatures take you (Rayman) hostage and force you into gladiator-like combat. The Rabbid Rabbits are obsessed with plungers, so there is one game where you shoot them with plungers. I suppose this is a good way for me to direct my plumbing angst. Oh, and it's quite fun.

Further Plumbing Worries

Last night's glug, which I believed to be localized to the upstairs bathroom, is apparently some sort of system-wide failure. When the downstairs toilet or any drains (sinks or showers) in the house are used, the upstairs bathroom drain makes a tremendous glug glug glug. This, in my understanding of plumbing, is not good. Jake says this means that the studor vent is off the hook, since the other bathroom fixtures have a different vent. This leads us to wonder if there's something wrong with the city drainage system (we did get a ton of rain yesterday and last night) or if there's something in 83 Durant's pipes. Like a poltergeist.

I am afraid of our plumbing

OK, you've read the previous post about respecting drains. I have the utmost respect for drains. I get very anxious about drainage problems.

And we have another one. This evening, upon flushing the upstairs toilet, there was a terrible gurgling. But it didn't come from the toilet. It came from the drain that is inside the wall that was once used to drain a washing machine that is no longer there. It's actually a fair distance away, across the bathroom, and behind a cabinet door. Several more flushes yielded the exact same result -- a successful flush, but a bellowing burbling glug glug glug from the un-used drain.

My unprofessional google-based opinion is that it's a problem with an air vent. Long-time readers will remember that when we moved in, the plumbing vent situation in the attic was of concern:
http://83durant.blogspot.com/2007/01/attic-mysteries.html

We solved the open-vent-in-the-attic problem by installing an air admittance valve:
http://83durant.blogspot.com/2007/03/preventing-attic-moisture.html

It's possible that the air admittance valve is now malfunctioning. Or maybe it's something else entirely. That's why I blog, in an attempt to more productively direct my obsessive fears about our house. To the plumbers among you in our readership: any suggestions?

Respect the Drain

Drains take a lot of abuse. I never really think too much about sink drains or shower drains, until that day when that drain doesn't drain. Then, you realize all too clearly how very valuable a working drain is.

We've been battling the kitchen sink drain for quite a while now. We began with some simple baking soda and vinegar, followed by boiling water. After several repeats on this tried and true method, we moved on to Drano, to no visible benefit. Next, we found ourselves opening the cleanouts immediately under the sink and getting in there with an auger. There's one immediately under the sink, then one a little ways away in a kitchen cabinet. We thought we had solved the problem.

It came back. Jake went to the hardware store for help, where they recommended "the stuff the professionals use," which was apparently some kind of professional-strength Drano. After getting it home and carefully reading the very scary label, we noticed that it was "concentrated, virgin sulfuric acid." A bit of googling on that term will bring you some horrifying tales of the many things that can go wrong when you use such a product. Obviously, as a heavy-duty acid, it could really mess you up if you spilled it, but more than that, using it properly seems to also be fairly hazardous, since if you add sulfuric acid to water, the reaction creates a lot of heat -- so much heat that in fact, the water could boil. Since we're working in a water-based situation (the drain) it seemed like adding acid to the scenario was more danger than we wanted to take on, even if it might make for a fabulously horrifying blog post. We've decided to take the high-test drain cleaner back to the hardware store unopened. Even if we DID choose to use it, we'd be afraid to have a half-full bottle of the stuff just sitting around here anyway.

So we were back to mechanical means. Jake found another cleanout in the basement laundry room that appeared to connect to the sink. This one was a good bit messier, as it was on a vertical run of the pipe rather than a horizontal. He got in there with the auger (and a lot of paper towels) and got a lot of gunk out. After closing things up, and re-doing the upstairs cleanouts, we did a few rounds of bleach and boiling water. It's been about 24 hours now, and I think we can safely say that these pipes are CLEAN. Or at least, temporarily free from obstruction.

School starts tomorrow, so you can expect fewer posts. Or possibly more posts, as I try to avoid grading.

Oh, and we still haven't had the plumber here to replace the water heater. Oddly, it's been working a bit better for a few days now, but there's still a weird leak of rusty water, and in any case, it's going to be replaced.

Warm Water Heater

Thanks to the blog, we know that it was only in September that we replaced our hot water heater. But something is amiss, and we're back to lukewarm showers. Lame. Mr. Plumber is on his way.

In other plumbing news, we continue to have trouble with the slow drain in the kitchen sink, which we thought we had fixed. We thought briefly that perhaps the extreme cold was to blame -- perhaps there was a frozen drainpipe. While that is certainly possible, it seems there is also something else blocking the drain, as it has warmed up a bit and still the drain is slow as molasses. In fact, there may be molasses in the drain.

Other than that, we're still buried under quite a bit of snow that we hope will have melted by July. And we all have varying degrees of a cold. Achoo! Carter got a clean bill of health from the vet, and his anniversary of joining our family is coming up. We should have a party!

PROFESSIONAL PLUMBING UPDATE: Mr. Plumber was here, and it looks like we got a defective water heater. We'll be getting a new one, but unfortunately not until sometime next week. Brrrrr....

DO-IT-OURSELVES PLUMBING UPDATE: Jake busted out the auger and worked it through the cleanouts of the kitchen sink drain. We're hopeful that he has busted up whatever blockage was holding things up. Hooray!

Three days in a row!

I am way better at Wii Sports than I am at any sport.

My Wii age is 36. I was OK with that, until Jake tried, and his Wii age is 28. No fair.

In house news, we fixed a clogged (super-slow draining) kitchen sink drain last night. Several rounds of baking soda & vinegar, plus boiling water, plus a fair amount of plunger-ing finally worked. They should make a Wii Plumber game. We would totally win.

We're in Hot Water

And thank goodness! Jake did some research and made some calls, and we were lucky enough to be able to get Mr. Plumber to come and install a new hot water heater for us. Here it is, in its water-warming glory:



Here's all the fancy specs on it:

Please note that it is an "EverKleen" -- self-cleaning! I think all appliances should have this feature. In fact, I would like our whole house to be outfitted with this technology.

In other small updates, we've started preparing for winter. We've taken out and put away our air conditioners, and we've taken out the screens and put the storm windows in the storm doors.

We've also made plans with our mason (the guy who rebuilt our chimney) to do some repointing both inside and outside the house. All this should have us in good shape when the real New England fall hits.

Long time, no blog

I haven't managed to blog in over a month, for reasons that can be summed up in one word: Lucy. I have her in the Baby Bjorn right now, where she's alternately sleeping and nursing. I'm taking a break from grading to do a long-awaited blog update.

Obviously, things around 83 Durant have changed enormously. Every room in the house is in complete disarray. We did manage to get a Christmas tree while Jessamy was visiting. It's pretty funny looking, but I like it.

In other repair news, we had to get a new kitchen faucet after my mom discovered a substantial leak running under the sink. We didn't know how old the faucet set was, so we ended up getting a new one installed (back on December 5th, for future reference). The faucet head pulls out to be a sprayer hose, a feature we like a lot.


We had another kitchen failure this week: the oven stopped working. We were a bit distressed by this, particularly when Jake discovered it when he was about to put a batch of cookies in the oven, and while we had a whole chicken in the fridge that we had planned to roast for dinner. The stove is pretty old, but we like it, and in any case, we weren't exactly prepared for such an expenditure or the researching of the right stove.



So we did the usual: turned to the internet. If you google "Magee Stove" you'll find very little useful information. You will find this hilarious link, which is to a letter to the editor of the MIT newspaper announcing the candidacy of a Magee stove for student body president. Follow the link -- it's really funny.

Jake thought this link from a do it yourself message board was promising, and he actually called a guy's home phone number to ask for help. Jake will hopefully fill in the details here about the exchange, but after a few back and forth phone calls, the guy talked Jake through how to fix the stove! It was awesome!

That's all for now. I imagine our home projects (and the blogging about them) will be slowing down. We'll try to keep getting the pictures up on Flickr for your enjoyment! Happy Holidays from 83 Durant!

Masters of Electricity and Plumbing

We've had a lot of help around the house lately here at 83 Durant! Check out the updates:

Ernie installed an awesome dimmer switch for the sconce lighting fixtures in the dining room. Who needs complicated 3-way switch installation instructions when you have Ernie! Thanks, Ernie! Here's the man in action:






















John (with assistance from Jake) installed our new utility sink. Unfortunately, they worked so fast, I didn't get a chance to record them in action, but here's the finished product:


Yes, they cut those special legs for it themselves, as we bought a sink that didn't have any of its own. It's a pretty sturdy set-up. And with the addition of some plumber's putty, it doesn't even leak! Awesome!

And as you may have noticed, beside that sink, you can see our FREEZER!! This Freezer Rules! Well, it's not plugged in yet, but upon our return from July travels, we will plug it in and start filling it with garden bounty! Woo hoo!

The Insulation Team Continues their conquest of the spare bedroom

Jake, John, and Rose were at it again this morning, installing insulation in the spare room. It's looking great!

And they're officially out of R-19. I can't believe it. We still have the R-13 for the interior walls, but we're trying to figure out if we should buy more R-19 to finish up the outside wall:



This afternoon's project will feature our Master Plumber, John, who will be installing a new utility sink in the basement. There was one there before, but it was busted up and pretty gnarly looking. We bought at new one at the ReStore, but we haven't felt brave enough to take on another plumbing project on our own. Here you can see the place where the old sink was. That black tube that runs into the drain actually comes from the upstairs dishwasher. Strange.

Plumbing Project #3

Once again, we let the professionals do their thing. It seemed wise, given that this job involved a new hook-up to the drain system as well as soldering. Open sewers and open flames are two things I really don't think we want to try working on without proper supervision & heavy-duty "do-it-yourself" insurance.

The problem: the washer hookup


Our nice new washer was hooked up in a rather Rube Goldberg contraption sorta way. Check it out:

The series of hoses seemed ripe for bursting, and the drain into the sink was less than ideal.

WIth the expertise and kindness of My Reliable Plumber (that's really their name), we now have this:

I'm very pleased. The washer now sits in what was once the floor of a shower. It makes for a backup drain system, and also a much more stable floor (hence less vibrating) than where it was before.