Plumb or Die

Tired of banging away with your hammer and pin setting tool on those drop in inserts? Don't you hate when you're doing a DWV and waterpipe rough-in in a parkade and there's hundreds of 'em?
Take an old 1/2" hammer drill bit and grind the end of it down til it's the same diameter as the setting tool. Now instead of using your biggest ball pien, you can stick the modified hammer drill bit into the insert and let the hammer drill do the hammering.
After 20 years in the trade, and thousands of these inserts, I had a 2nd year apprentice show me this trick a couple of months ago.
Use and enjoy.

tonyoliv

Anyone ever have a leak in PVC Drains, probly no one, but if any of u guys ever hear of anyone having a leak, i have found a very nice repair, now pay close attendation, find the leak and just place a wet vac at the test site, turn her on, first clean site by placing primer at location and watch it disappear into the pipe then add your glue, and then turn off the vac, wait and retest. Works great for me

Squench

When using a toilet auger, take a piece of 3/4 pipe insulation and slide it down over the bend in the auger. Keeps down on the scratches, and keeps picky homeowners happy.

plumbco

if your helper lost your big pair of channel locks and your trying to tighten the drain on a fiberglass shower. From the bottom a 2x4 stud fits perfectly into the slots and turn to the left. Now use it everytime even when I got new tools.

Ron The Plumber

I can't picture this, can you post a picture of what your saying here?

If my helper lost my big channel locks, he'll dam sure buy me a new pair.

plumbco

I don't know how to post pictures yet. Picture a fiberglass shower stall. Here we use lasco. Ok now placing the lasco shower bottom drain. You know you putty the top part push it in, then the bottom rubber piece, then the cardboard ring, then the big tightening ring. Hand tight that. Now the part that looks like a castle head(kind of, same piece with putty, but from under) a 2x4 block will fit inside and use as leverage to tight. I'll have to figure out the picture posting.

Squench

Here's one I used yesterday..A wet vac is a nice clean way to retrieve a Spiderman toothbrush from a stopperless lavatory.

gitnerdun

I am not sure about this, I seem to remember that you should never vacuum combustibles. But it does sound like it would work.

smellslike$tome

[quote=gitnerdun;171407]Tricks are well earned and I don't share many, so if you are a customer or competition of mine, please don't read

Kitchen sink stopped? Try filling the disposer side halfway. Hold the stopper in the other compartment firmly closed. Now turn on the disposer and let it force the water thru the blockage. I can't tell you how many times this works. I have talked many a customer thru this on the phone, and even recieved tips in the mail.

When I first went into business I had ZERO experience with drain cleaning. I had come from a new construction background and had only begun to do any service work at all about a year before I left my last employer. So all of my drain work has been more or less self taught which is a problem and the only reason I started doing it at all was because if you can't help someone with a clogged drain then they won't call you when they need a new water heater. So I kind of reluctantly backed into drain cleaning. I don't feel this way about it anymore because it has proven to be so profitable but three years later there are still an awful lot of things I don't know about drain cleaning.

So last night I'm trying to clear this kitchen sink drain (I've really come to hate it when someone calls me with this problem) and I'm getting nowhere with it. Started with the 20' X 1/4" cable no luck, then I used sulfuric acid (yeah, I know, I hear the groans but it works about 50 % of the time when nothing else seems to) no luck, so then I drag my mini rooter up a flight of stairs to the sink and run about 50 - 60 feet of cable until I reached 3"pipe, retrieve the cable, re-connect the p-trap and run the water only to find that the sink baaaarely drains any better (which was predictable because all that stupid cable ever does is punch a hole in the grease anyway). So now I'm really frustrated. It's late. I'm tired. I'm thinking I will have to come back the next day, climb up on the roof, run a hose and a drain king (I do not yet own a jetter) down the vent and hope their are no offsets in the vent until I get below the sink waste arm. I use a flat rate pricing system and I'm already way over on my time for this job so coming back is something I do not want to do.

Then I remembered reading this post. I filled the sink up to the basket strainer, held the stop in place, hit the disposal switch, and 15 seconds later that drain was sucking up water like a man 3 days in the desert without a drop!

Thank you!

Now I don't know if everything I did before had any effect or not but I do know that the next clogged ks drain I come upon that has a disposal will be getting this treatment before anything else!
I will also say though that you need to run lots of water afterwards especially if it's a long run like this one was. After it cleared I just let the water run but after 2 or 3 minutes it started wanting to back up again. So I hit the disposal again and knocked whatever it was loose. All total, I probably ran the water for about 15 minutes (while I was picking up all my stuff).

Thanks a lot! I hope this will work all of the time but even part of the time will be better than the alternative.

If anyone else has any other drain tricks, I'm all ears!

Ron The Plumber

Toilet clogged with a foriegn object, auger just won't bring it back out, pissing you off

Remove what water you can from the bowl, now run the auger, this sometimes will bring back what ever it is that is in there, if it's plastic and can get suspened in water, chances are it will drop back to bowl if there is no water in then to keep it in it's trapway.

gitnerdun

smellslike$tome

I'm glad my trick worked for you. The disposer will build a lot of pressure, I have had water come out the roof vent before. Sometimes that trick makes for a good sell on a new disposer. The old rusty insides of disposers rust and deteriorate allowing larger hunks of food to get thru.

I really enjoy doing that trick right after the man of the house tells me that he has done everything and nothing is going to work.
Bob

strongfloors

Great tip! I can not wait to try it.

rhinoguy

Take the pipe end cleaner, drill a hole in the cap and install a #10 X 1 screw and nut. That goes in the drill too.
Keep about six or so of the Taiwan grade drills handy, put a different bit in each one. You also have at least one loaded battery all the time, too. I bought mine at auction.

woodmagman

Solder a copper cap on a pipe that is facing down. Typically the cap drops off when you apply heat to the cap. If you crimp the cap to the pipe after you have place it on the pipe with your channel locks before heating it, I promise you will never fight to hold a cap in place again.

Ron The Plumber

This will work on other fittings as well.

Squench

Slide that flux brush into an emtpy sawzall blade container! Keeps the brush clean, and tools clean from your slimy brush.

Doing two water heaters in the same day sucks, but here's a tip to make it easier. Put the first install on bottom and when you are ready to get it out, take 2 tie down straps and slide them under the top box.
Now you can easily lift it up out of the way, and allows you to slide the old unit right in. Lower the lifted heater back down and rest it on ol' leaky, and you are ready for transport to the next job!

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woodmagman

When using a hole saw to drill through wood, you can drill faster and maintain the life of the hole saw longer if you start the hole just enough to mark the surface. Around the hole score line, drill at least four 1/4" holes through the surface to create a relief for the saw dust to collect and exit. This stops the saw from clogging and then burning. This works for drilling up or down best, horizontal holes need the relief holes on the bottom of the score.

smellslike$tome

[quote=Squench;183832]When working on a faucet or valve that has size-specific o-rings and you don't have the specific size remove the o-ring and teflon tape around the 'race' or groove the ring sits in, a couple times. Replace the ring, grease it and forget it!
Never had a callback on one yet.

Hey, this one works too! You guys are a wealth of information! Thanks!

Eric_2007

Sharkbite is a quick and easy connection for all copper to pex or pex to pex. For more info goto houseneeds.com

gitnerdun

Great tip, Eric?