Plumbing, Part 1

I have been remiss in giving home repair tips, so I am going to do a brief series on plumbing repairs you can do at home. First, things a home plumber should not attempt.

Do not re-plumb your air conditioning (central air, window units are not worth repair, just buy a new one). It is illegal. You are working with pipes containing coolants, highly regulated substances, so call a professional. Second, do not work on pipes carrying natural gas. If you make the slightest mistake, you will blow yourself and your house up and, that's no fun at all.

Do not attempt to run all new pipes. You will find that at certain points you must change the diameter of the pipes and knowing when is the job of a contractor. Do it yourself and you might wind up with little more than a trickle in you shower.

However, it is easy to fix a simple drip, and not to hard to fix a broken pipe. Replacing a toilet flapper or a fluid master is easy. Even replacing a toilet is, while a lot of work, not too complicated. Replacing a shower head is simple and repairing or replacing faucets is fairly simple.

The main thing is to look at what you are repairing and think. When you are done, everything should look pretty much the same, so just keep that mental picture in mind.

Often, you will find connections that are threaded, various nuts and screws, and,  quite often, these will not be easy to loosen. Do not start trying to play King Kong and force the issue. Get yourself some WD40, spray the connection thoroughly, then tap it a couple of time, firmly, but not too hard, with a small hammer or even the back of your wrench. Then wait 5 minutes or so. The connection should loosen up. If not, keep trying it. If it just won't give, the threading might be stripped; that would be the fault of whoever worked on it last. If it is, you will have to cut the connection out and the repair becomes more complex. If at that point, you want to call a plumber, that is understandable and fine. But, if you want to keep doing-it-yourself, there are some steps to take, and we will get into that over the next few posts.

I want to say a few words about the tools you should be using and about patience. A good, fairly large pair of channel lock pliers will usually do the trick for most home repairs but a Stillson wrench also called a pipe wrench, gives a better grip on the connection. If the wrench starts slipping on that connection, slow down and be careful. You run the risk of chewing the whole thing up so badly that you will not be able to continue getting the wrench to grip. Do not get in a rush. Also, sometimes, okay, often, you will not have a lot of room to work in. If that is true, you just have to go slow. Sometimes, you sill only move things a fraction of an inch at a time before you have to rest your wrench. Sorry, there is no way around that. Just remember, a plumber would have to go just as slow, and he would be charging you for all of that time.

Next, post, PVC.