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Post by whollygoats on Mar 22, 2022 18:12:41 GMT
Well, before I got to 'full stop' on my shower drain, I called in the pros. Upon my description of a slow flow shower drain, not responding to OTC drain cleaners, they sent in their first team, their drain line cleaner specialists (cheaper than 'real' plumbers). Yesterday, he duly showed, negotiated the level of service, and, once started, ran in to a complication. Evidently the drain grating had become adhered. It required the intervention of a 'real plumber'.
The 'real plumber' arrived, dealt with the impediment and conducted a survey of my existing system. They noted that the water heater was aged and suggested I consider a new one. They also pointed out that there were corrosion indicators on my water system. They provided estimates for both the immediate water heater issue and the long-term repiping of the entire house. Just to note, the latter was well over $15K.
I knew that the water heater was aging toward replacement. What I did not know was the average expected lifetime of a water heater. It turns out it's about twelve years. At least that's what a professional trying to sell me one tells me. I know that the one which is in place was installed better than eighteen years ago. It was prolly more than twenty years ago. Ivy had it replaced, and upgraded, when we went to two baths.
Anyway, I'm wasting time waiting for the plumber's apprentice to return and root out my shower drain. I'm looking forward to a fully functional shower.
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Post by JoeP on Mar 22, 2022 21:24:29 GMT
Has it become clogged with luxuriant beard hairs?
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 22, 2022 23:13:26 GMT
Has it become clogged with luxuriant beard hairs? Well, it seems it was mostly soap scum. I'm fairly sure the luxuriant beard hairs did their part.
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Post by Moose on Mar 22, 2022 23:28:51 GMT
This is one of the good things about being a council tenant. Fifteen K is a lot of money
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 23, 2022 2:07:16 GMT
This is one of the good things about being a council tenant. Fifteen K is a lot of money Ivy originally paid $25K for the property. That was back in 1979. She borrowed another $25K to add the upstairs bath, finish the attic, a new roof, and entirely new siding, in 1997. The local property tax agency, the state via the county, assesses my property value as just north of $500K. Recent sales in the neighborhood shows prices well beyond the assessed 'market value' by as much as 10-15%. It's nucking futz. Anyhoo...In that kind of a market, $15K is enough to consider undertaking it were I concerned about losing $20-25K of value in a sale. Since I hope to be removed from the property feet first, I have no desire to sell or realize my outrageous profits (that would be heavily taxed on capital gains, anyway) when I would have to find someplace more inexpensive to live but had near the same amenities. I don't think that likely and I refuse to upset my life just to realize some realtor's wet dream. The water heater is a different thing altogether.
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Post by tangent on Mar 23, 2022 9:02:10 GMT
They noted that the water heater was aged and suggested I consider a new one. They also pointed out that there were corrosion indicators on my water system. I'm surprised they suggested repiping the entire water system. Some British houses still have lead pipes put in by the Victorians but otherwise, the pipework would be entirely of copper. And to my knowledge that doesn't corrode. The main problem with water pipes in hard water areas is that they can be furred up with scale and descaling the pipes might create radiator leaks (radiators being made of iron). But radiator leeks don't require replacing the entire pipework. I would point out I'm not a 'real plumber'.
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 23, 2022 12:54:46 GMT
1. There are no 'radiators'. The water in the house is limited to potable tap water and sewage water (with wash water being the first almost immediately transformed to the latter). The heating of the house is central heating provided by natural gas furnace, with an electric heat pump backup. The hot water heater is there to heat water for the wash basins, not generate steam for radiant heat.
And, 2. copper does corrode. It shows as blue/green splotching on the copper, usually where some leakage, or condensation, has been noted.
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Post by JoeP on Mar 23, 2022 14:03:32 GMT
You have more than one room, right. How does the heat from the furnace get distributed? Surely not by conduction through the walls and floors. By air ducts?
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 23, 2022 16:28:08 GMT
You have more than one room, right. How does the heat from the furnace get distributed? Surely not by conduction through the walls and floors. By air ducts? Correctomundo! The furnace, in the basement, has ducting coming off of it that goes to various vents in the flooring throughout the house. One in each side room (bath, library, bedroom, kitchen) two in the front room (living room and dining room), and one longer duct up to the finished attic. The much larger intake vent is in the hallway at the base of the stairs to the attic. There is a vent off the furnace to the basement, as well, but down there, one can also see the ducting, as well as the water, sewer, electric, and gas lines, running overhead. When Ivy bought the house, it still had the huge central vent from the ancient sawdust burning furnace the house was built with, in the hallway right outside the bathroom door. I never saw this grate, but she described it as a 'perforated manhole cover'. Heavy and metal. The central hallway was then used as the heating duct; heated air rose into the hallway and then, doors were opened into the various side rooms to allow warm air to flow in and heat them with the 'central' heating unit. When oil came into vogue, the huge sawdust burner was replaced by a much smaller oil-burning furnace, but added the 'octopus' of ducting. Then, after Ivy bought the house, she had natural gas piped in for heating and cooking, and the furnace shrunk even further. Now, rather than dominating the basement, it has been tucked in the far corner, next to the stand-up water heater.
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Post by JoeP on Mar 24, 2022 13:08:39 GMT
A hypocaust!
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Post by Moose on Mar 31, 2022 23:58:33 GMT
I only associate that word with ancient Rome, for some reason.
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Post by JoeP on Apr 1, 2022 21:29:24 GMT
That's what I associate it with too. There's probably a more modern word.
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Post by ceptimus on Apr 1, 2022 23:10:04 GMT
My previous house had a gas powered warm air central heating system. These systems save a lot of wall space that would otherwise be taken up by radiators, and there is no chance of leaky radiators damaging walls, floors or carpets. They warm the house more quickly when starting up, because there's no need to warm up about half a ton of water before the heat starts actually warming the house. They used to be more economical (used less gas to heat a house than a 'conventional' hot water radiator system of the day did). The 'boiler' in my old house (despite mainly being a flame-to-air heat exchanger, it could heat the hot water too) gave over twenty years reliable service and was still going strong when I sold the house and moved to my current one.
However, they do seem to have fallen out of favor in the UK, and when your old 'boiler' (heat exchanger) packs up, it's now impossible to buy a direct replacement. There are a couple of manufacturers still selling such units, but the flue arrangements are very different to what the old ones had. Many people prefer to change to a conventional hot-water radiator system when the time comes, even though that means major building work to install all the required pipework.
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Post by Moose on Apr 2, 2022 0:01:35 GMT
I was surprised to learn that radiators aren't really a thing in the US... I had always just assumed that they had them everywhere. I've only once lived somewhere without radiators and that was a house with an electric storage unit. It was terrible.
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Post by whollygoats on Apr 2, 2022 4:31:56 GMT
It depends upon where one is at and when the buildings were constructed. Part of downtown in Puddle City was one time heated by a central steam plant, so a lot of older buildings in that part of town have radiators. My uni was in that district and several of the buildings were former city schools and former commercial buildings, with steam.
A typical US home is usually heated by radiant heat from either electricity or natural gas, generated in a home furnace. 'Baseboard' electric heating has an equivalent of heating units near the floor which can become hot to the touch. Ducted forced air is the most common, though. The house I grew up in had such a furnace in the basement which burned coal. Part of my evening duties, before bedtime, was to clear the clinkers out of the firebox and fill the tinderbox. I detested coal heating....it stank.
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Post by JoeP on Apr 2, 2022 7:51:55 GMT
Your mention of a central steam plant is interesting - I suppose this is a form of district heating, which is common in Finland, but it's (afaik) distributed as hot water not steam.
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Post by whollygoats on Apr 2, 2022 18:11:26 GMT
Yeah...I remembered it as Lincoln Steam Plant in SW PDX. It burned mountains of sawdust to generate steam (and hot water, evidently). It was owned by one of the two large public electric utility companies, Pacific Power & Light. It was dismantled in 1990. In looking for it, I found that Portland General Electric, the other public utility, owned and operated Station L, generating steam for east PDX, downstream and across river from the Lincoln Steam Plant. I'm assuming that they both also generated electricity with the steam.
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