The Main Bathroom Shower Fix

There are two givens when you buy a previously owned house.  First, the sellers are going to do quick cover-ups along with staging to sell the house.  That means, even though the cover-up may not be noticeable during the viewing, it will become rather apparent when you move in.  For example, the previous owners of our new house obviously did a quick and rather shoddy paint job throughout the house in favour of a bit more neutral colours.  This really translates into us having to paint every room in the house properly.  The second given is unless a repair is noticeable to a potential buyer and may affect the sale of the house, the seller is not going to fix it.

Shortly after moving into our new house we realized the previous owners were guilty of not fixing even minor repairs.  The main tub and shower control dripped and dripped enough to really get on my nerves while wasting valuable fresh water.  Further investigation showed that the previous owners had purposely broke the control that diverts water from going into the tub so it would go to the shower only.  The hand held shower head with it's long hose ensured that more than likely during a showing there would be no noticeable leak.  The only time we actually noticed the leak was when the hose filled completely enough to spill out the shower head.

This house was built in 1994 and I can't believe that neither bathrooms have access panels for plumbing repairs that may be needed.  We had three choices for the main bathroom plumbing repair.  We could rip out the tub surround and replace everything, we could rip the tile off of the kitchen wall behind the stove to gain access to the pipes or we could go through the tub surround to gain access to the pipes.  We called in the professionals.  As avid DIYers, we know there are some repairs best left to them.

We had purchased a gorgeous Moen shower set at half price during Home Hardware's clearance sale.  The intentions was to use the set when we remodeled the upstairs bathroom at our last house.  Well, we never got to that project so I told the plumber to use the set for the repair.  Once the plumber cut the hole in the tub surround, he found that the Moen set would not work with the valve we have.  The valve was the problem and needed replacing but even though the house isn't that old finding the replacement valve quickly became a problem.  He made a few phone calls and we went without water in the main bathroom for a few days while he finally found a replacement valve.

The plumber told us the easiest and cheapest solution was using a contractor's plate.  He was very concerned we would not like the looks.  The thing is we needed water in the main bathroom and a functional tub/shower.  As DIYers we understand that sometimes a solution to a problem is dictated by what is there.  We told him to go ahead and use the contractor's plate. 

I honestly don't think the contractor's plate looks all that bad.  He used the Moen plate from our set in the centre.  If we ever need to work on the valve again, both plates are easily removed.  He had to replace the tub spigot with shower control as the old one was too damaged. 

He used the handle from our shower set giving the finished result a pleasing look.  Quite frankly, I like the peace of mind that we now have easy access if necessary.  If anything, the contractor's plate gives the shower control a custom look.  There are shower doors on the tub surround so it isn't like the shower control is highly visible but even if it was, I wouldn't mind it.

The total repair ended up costing us $250 but it was done correctly.  We likely could have done the repair ourselves but it really was a job for professionals.  The reality is, he had a lot better connections for rounding up the valve than we did.  This meant it took about four days for the repair where it would have taken us considerably longer to find the parts.

We removed the hand held shower head.  I have waist length hair so would have liked to keep the hand held unit but it just wasn't practical.  In order to use it without being in the shower, you would have to wedge yourself between the toilet and tub while working around the shower doors. The existing shower head also had a water flow restrictor so was almost impossible to get the shampoo out of my hair.  We were in Bed, Bath & Beyond where we found a lovely, adjustable Moen shower head in the clearance section for $8 (regular $56).  We bought it even though the finish was a brushed bronze instead of chrome.  It works nicely and I can't believe the price we got it for!

With the much needed shower repair finished it was time to move onto freshening the look of the bathroom.  Coming up, how we added custom wood trim, salvaged a plate mirror, a custom made medicine cabinet, and took the bathroom for it's horrid peach tones  to a very light taupe, called Hazelnut Cream.  Stay tuned...

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

The Leak

Well, it was bound to happen and for some reason lately all of our housing problems have involved water leaks!  We got the dreaded call from one of our vacation home neighbours that there was a water leak at our vacation house.  My husband immediately called the resort manager to have the leak taken care.  Apparently it is a rather common problem in the resort and we were told to call the utility company to remind them we had had a leak if there were any charges.  We got the bill today and was sickened to see 1.200 gallons of water had been used!  In terms of cost is was only $10.48 but heavens that amount of fresh water going to waste is just horrible in my eyes.  So I called the utility company and they said the leak must have been on the house side otherwise it would not have registered on the meter.  Anything on the house side of the meter is the customer's responsibility.  That's fair enough as it is the same thing here in Canada so no big surprise.  At any rate the problem has been repaired by the park so we will likely have a small repair bill when we get down there the next visit although we have had no notification of any type of bill. 

We now find ourselves in the same position many Canadian snowbirds who own property outside of Canada face year round.   We have to rely on good neighbours and the resort itself for these types of problems given the distance the vacation home (US) is from our permanent home in Canada.  It isn't like we can just drop, run and be there within a few minutes or even an hour or so.  We are very lucky we bought in this community where not only the resort itself looks out for residents the neighbours do too!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

Insects as Problem Indicators

Shortly after moving into this house we noticed a problem with creepy crawlies.  Now I'm not terrified of insects but I would prefer them to not be in our house.  Some of these insects were to be expected given the location and design of the house.  What we really learned is insects can be a very good indicator of other problems such as moisture.  If you eliminate the causation then you eliminate the insects.  We also learned that even though you eliminate the cause it can sometimes take a couple of weeks to notice any change in the number of insects.  At times especially if the insect problem is caused from infiltration though cracks and crevices it is quite possible to seal these effectively sealing the insects in the house.  In this case it may take manual removal as well a natural die off to eliminate those insects inadvertently trapped in the house.   

Creepy Crawlies

We identified a few problem insects like the huge diving spiders (top left) and large black funnel spiders (top right).  The boxwoods edging the lower patio were laiden with funnel spiders giving them easy access to indoors.  Originally we thought the multitude of house centipedes (bottom left) were normal but after considerable research we found they were actually beneficial insects and indicators of other insect infestations combined with moisture.  Earwigs (bottom right) were quite common around the foundation and occasionally a few found their way indoors.  Other insects not pictured that enjoyed our indoors during our first year were pill bugs, millipedes, carpenter ants and a small fuzzy brown beetle with yellow markings. 

We took an aggessive approach to sealing insects out of the house that involved a lot of caulking.  However, the lower main living area including kitchen is mainly below grade with windows and patio door at ground level making any tiny gap an insect point of entry.  Despite our efforts the centipedes remained our house companions all be it in much lower numbers.  Up to the time of the discovery of our major plumbing problem in 2009 the centipede count was up to 17.

End of Day

In August of 2009 we discovered the reason for some of our major plumbing problems that caused flooding in the furnace room.  The portion of the drainage pipes were dug up from the house to the side of the patio leaving us with a lovely hole resembling a grave for a couple of weeks while the plumber did a lot of troubleshooting to discover the actual problem.  Having dealt with having the front yard dug up the year before due to plumbing problems we knew it would likely be a huge mess.   This solution resulted in running new drainage lines tearing up a good portion of our backyard.  Pictured is the backyard after the new lines were run.

With fall quickly approaching I geared up for the increased sightings of earwigs and centipedes.  Instead what happened is I spotted one centipede in mid September and that was it.  Apparently with the drainage working properly thanks to the aggressive approach we took, the area around the foundation quickly drained and dried.  During the rains the water drained quickly away.  So the centipedes were an indicator of other moisture liking insects (pill bugs, earwigs).  We have seen no pill bugs or earwigs indoors other than an occasional on that comes through the patio door.  A residual insecticide along the patio door threshold as well as the outer window sills has stopped insects before they can get inside.  Removing the moisture problem eliminated these insects which in turn eliminated a source of food for the centipedes resulting in eliminating the centipedes.  Or at least I think they are eliminated.  Spring is coming so that will be the confirming test even though we have stayed centipede free since mid September.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

Plumbing Update

I know many readers have been waiting for the current plumbing problems. If you recall my last post talked about our plumbing problems (more here). The plumber snaked from the house and back the other way hoping to solve the problem. Ideally had this worked we would have noted a great improvement in our drainage problem.

Indication

Snaking should have opened the drainage lines but what we quickly realized is it caused the lines to collapse. The water wasn't draining properly then about a week later we noticed greening of the grass (red arrows) right in the same orientation of where the line ran and not really noticeable in the pictures the ground caving in. So we thought we found the exact location for the problem not realizing that we had a type of fiber piping that has been banned since the 1970's. In it's inception this piping was supposed to prevent root damage. However, as we quickly found out this piping does collapse causing major drainage issues. It is proving to be a costly repair for anyone who used the fiber piping!

Dangerous Wire

In Ontario it is supposed to be mandatory that you call for utility line locates prior to digging. Line locates are free but can take up to 2 weeks if it is not an emergency. In emergency situations line locates can be done within 24 hours. The fine if you hit a line without calling for line locates is $5,000. Now we knew from previous line locates there were no official utility lines as in from the utility to us where we were digging. What we also knew is the previous owner installed an outdoor plug off of which fed an outdoor utility light and the line to the dock lift. We disconnected the line to the dock lift so here is what we saw with the first backhoe shovel not even 2 feet under the ground and only a foot from the sidewalk where digging for flower beds easily could have happened was this totally illegal wire hook-up running from the main backyard plug to the utility light. I was shocked and yet happy we found this potentially very dangerous wire. How could anyone be this stupid? I'm not kidding! This unprotected electrical wire had the very real potential to kill someone. It's eerie too because my husband said to keep the backyard breaker off unless we were using it so he must have suspected a problem. So that is our next household project.

Pipes

It was decided after a bit of discussion to install a weeping bed that would be between the house and the lower clean-outs. This involved digging a trench from the back of the house to the clean-outs or about 100 ft. Three quarters of the trench was filled with 1' of gravel then the solid piping from the house was connected to two lines of holed piping that reconnects into solid piping that connects to the final drain. What this means is any storm, grey or rain water coming from the house ends up being filtered into the ground so it doesn't reach the water. In our area this is a more expensive solution that is eco-friendly as well. We are very, very conscious about what goes down our drains even though all but the kitchen are hooked to the municipal sewage system. This means nothing from the kitchen even though it is all phosphate free will not reach the water. Rain water is collected and used for the gardens. Now eventually any excess will reach the water but not much and by then it has been filtered so again another eco-friendly solution.

End of Day

It really was a depressing day in a lot of respects. My husband and I watched as the entire backyard was essentially destroyed. All the sod, seed and work we had done was gone. At the same time I couldn't help but think perhaps we finally have the problem fixed meaning no more water in the house.

Over the past 2 years we have had water levels in the house as high as 3" on several occasions. It is never pleasant to deal with flooding problems. So while our backyard now looks like this as of last Friday I'm looking forward to flood free days indoors. I think too that with the improved drainage our millipede, centipede and earwing problem will disappear even though I definitely have those issues under control. Our main concern right now is to solve all of our drainage issues. Once those are solved any of the side effects of drainage problems should go away including moisture loving insects.


Garden Gnome
©2006-2009

Quick Plumbing Update

As of tomorrow it will be two weeks that the patio has been dug up with a hole about the size of a grave. The good news is everything appears to be draining fine. The bad news is our plumber is on holidays so we still have the hole. He is supposed to come out the first of the week. So there's where we sit with out plumbing problem. I'll update more as soon as the plumbing is being worked on. In the meantime tomorrow I will post how we finished off the down draft vent.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2009

Plumbing Problems

We have had on and off plumbing problems since buying this house. We actually are dealing with two drainage systems possibly three, faulty design for both and roots. The first system is the municipal sewage system. The two bathrooms and laundry room drain into the municipal sewage system. Shortly after moving in we discovered a problem with this system which we thought was fixed until another problem appeared the following spring that involved using a porta-john and digging up the neighbours' yard. That ended up being a rooting problem so once the roots were removed that system has been working fine. During the second repair we installed additional drain clean-outs for that system and the system that drains into the natural water body. Ground water, rain water and the kitchen grey water drains into this natural drain system. This means we have to be careful to use a no or low phosphate dish and dishwasher detergent as well as scrap plates before washing either by hand or in the dishwasher. Before you ask, yes this is a perfectly legal, acceptable and common drainage system here. Now we know there is a septic system that we suspect may still be in use for rain water drainage but we haven't found it yet.

Just outside of the kitchen patio doors there is a pit, brown circular object at beginning of the arrow. Water from the kitchen, rain water and two drains from the patio (one pictured end of arrow) (1) drain into this and from there travel down another solid pipe to the natural water way. We suspected a blockage of this solid pipe that forced water up and back into the house. The only solution was digging up the patio.

We discovered a corrugated drainage pipe that was obviously bowed (2) and (3) so now things got interesting. When the solid pipe was snaked, the snake went through the 'Y' joint instead and snaked the corrugated pipe instead of the smooth pipe. We do not know and the plumber can't figure out why the corrugated pipe is there in the first place unless it was a shoddy repair. At the same time we found the solid pipe (4) that had obviously been patched at some point. The end solution is we are tying all of the drainage pipes together in one solid fashion so nothing can get inside the pipes. The pit is going to be replaced with a clean-out. What we will end up with is a solid plumbing system into the natural system with 3 clean-outs covering all bases.

Pictured is the machine our plumber uses to snake the drains. A large coiled, flexible metal rod attaches to the front. It is then fed into the drain and the machine is turned on forcibly clearing any blockage. Additional rods are added as required. When the blockage is cleared is shows as a thick, black and very smelly sludge. In a normal system you would not see this as it would go directly into the sewage system. In our case we could both see and smell it!

Once we got the blockage cleared we discovered another problem. The pipe end in the pit (1) was more than half blocked with cement reducing the diameter considerably which reduces the flow of water from the pit. This creates a greater chance of water backing up into the house. Then when the blockage was cleared it was obvious the patch in the solid pipe wasn't sealed. So we are replacing the solid pipe from the pit that will no longer be a pit to the connection of the first patio drain.

The majority of the work happened Tuesday afternoon. The good news is there is no flooding in the house. It has drained and dried up. The trench my husband dug has also mostly dried. As you can see from the bottom picture the water coming out of the drainage pipe has cleared considerably. The bad news is the plumber wants to leave the open trench as is for at least one week before hooking things up properly. That means we are left with a nice trench, piles of bricks and a pile of dirt for the next week.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2009