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Thanks. I'd had the cat since 2002 when his mother literally set him and his siblings on my doorstep. When he was a few years old he got mauled by dogs & I spent 6 months nursing him back to health. He also got a bad ear infection another time & came close to death, but he was a tough kitty and he pulled through with some tlc and medicine. He used to be an extremely shy skittish kitty but in his later years he grew braver (except he was still terrified of the vet).
Matt, I don't mind if people get my gender wrong. It actually amuses me.
On the bright side, my kitty who was missing finally came back after I went out and called her. She's been clinging to me ever since.
 
Zanne, Sorry to hear about your cat. I’m here with my brother. 2 of my sisters have been sitting with him in 12 hr shifts. I’ve been here since 8pm and one of my sisters we be back around 6am. He has only about 1/2 of 1 lung that is functioning. Only said 3 words to me so far. “ got to pee “
He’ll stand up on his own and walk to the restroom.
He doesn’t want any help. Refuses to be hooked up to a heart monitor or anything else. He is a severe paranoid schizophrenic most of his 56 yrs of life.
 
Some hard times happenin around here lately.....chins up everyone. That's a terrible way to lose a pet Zanne, I'm sorry you and your kitty had to go through that. At least he didn't go through it alone!

And Tom, for the record....Zanne lost HER cat ;)
Sorry about that. Being's I never met Zanne before and never knew anybody by this name so I didn't know if it was a
man or woman's name.
NOW I KNOW!!!!!
 
Mr_David, I'm sorry to hear that. I've sat watch over dying family members before so I know how much it can suck. Well, they were very close friends that I considered family-- they were like grandparents to me and I was closer to them than to my biological grandparents. You want to help them and don't want to lose them but you don't want them to suffer. With your brother having been schizophrenic for so long it must have been incredibly tough for him. While some attitudes toward mental illness have improved, there is still a great stigma with schizophrenia and it can be very difficult to treat. He's fortunate to have loving family members who are there for him-- even if he's not fully lucid. It's better than just having him surrounded by strangers.

No need to apologize, Tom. It doesn't bother me in the least. I forget what forum I was on, but one day I saw people debating what my gender was and I just sat back and laughed. I actually had to play a male character on EverQuest for years (because whenever I played a female character I got private messages requesting cybersex, inappropriate comments, & people were disrespectful). Friends I "knew" online for 5 years thought I was male and were shocked when my brother let slip that I was female. Fortunately, they still treated me the same. Although one newer friend said we couldn't be friends anymore because he couldn't "be friends with a girl". Made a big deal about how my true gender was some sort of betrayal of his trust and that it was a huge issue. LOL. It was incredibly silly.
 
Zanne, are you a plumber or a retired plumber like myself?? You know quite a bit about the plumbing industry I see. The common
plumbing terms you and fredo did were very impressive. Some I never knew. Anyway, it is nice having you on this site. I've enjoyed
being on it myself for the little bit of time I have been here.
 
I'll answer for Zanne. She's not a plumber but her knowledge on some topics are pretty amazing.
I think a lot of it is just from paying attention to stuff that gets answered here and on other related forums.

My brother passed away yesterday. He degraded rapidly after the incident I previously mentioned.
He was sleeping peacefully.

CIMG0191.JPG
 
Thank you. He’ll be missed even though most conversations with him on the phone were incoherent rambling about something that may have occurred back in the 60’s and 70’s. He’s at peace
 
I'm so sorry, Mr_David. *HUGS* That's a nice picture-- love the little doggies all around him. I know it doesn't make up for him being gone, but at least he went in his sleep.

Tom, as Mr_David said, I am not a plumber, but my father was pretty handy with stuff and had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. He knew about all sorts of topics from history to geology and invertebrate zoology. I inherited his desire to learn about how things work. I also got to take some art, ceramics, woodworking, and electronics classes in high school. In college I studied computer programming (most of which is obsolete now due to them moving on to different programming languages).

Our plumber passed away about a month after my father passed so I had to learn how to fix things by myself. I studied the Louisiana Plumbing code in great detail before it was reverted back to IPC 2012. I like to research and find out how things are supposed to be done and why. I must have pestered for Frodo and Neal half to death asking all sorts of questions. LOL.

I won't pretend to know everything, but I feel like I've learned a lot and am now trying to learn more about wiring/electrical.

Now I feel like a narcissist. LOL.
 
I was just trying to search for images that show the proper location and type of fitting used for a cleanout on a washing machine vent and got totally distracted when I came across this blog and noticed the S-trap and the fact that the AAV is inside a wall with no grille. LOL. Even though it is an old post, I couldn't help but type up a long-winded comment explaining what is wrong with it (but it is pending moderation).
But, here is one of the photos.badplumbingS-trap.jpg
I don't know if the electrical outlet placement violates any codes, but I don't think I would put one in that spot so close to potential leaks (should the washing machine supply lines break or leak). I'd have it up high and more to the side.
 
Hi Zanne, In my neck of the woods you can't put an AAV on a washing machine drain. Plus you have to have check valves
on the hot and cold water valves and they definetly have an s-trap there. None of that set-up would pass around here. I
agree with you on the electrical part also.
 
That's what I was thinking, Tom-- although, I wasn't aware of the check valves. I've been concentrating so much on the DWV that I need to learn more about the water supply side. I imagine check valves are a good idea for pretty much any area where water is coming in to the house and there is a chance of backwash.

That info will come in handy when I re-do the water supply lines and such. Are the check valves needed for toilet supply lines, sink lines, shower supply, etc? (I'm currently searching for check valves to see what kinds are available now). Again, thank you very much for that!

The homeowners were so proud of themselves for that hack job. I don't know if they ever published my comments, but I did mention to them that some places don't allow AAVs on the washing machines. One of the photos of them was holding up a book they used as a guide and I wanted to tell them to toss that thing in the garbage if it told them that any of that was ok. LOL. I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by that electrical. I just imagine a leak-- hose break or something-- and water going right to that outlet. It's not even a GFCI outlet! I would have a GFCI outlet if I was going to have it anywhere near water like that.
 
Zanne you don't need check valves for the other fixtures. They just started the check valves for washing machines
about 5 years ago. They screw right on the hose bibb and the other end has a place for the hose from the washer
to screw on. When you get ready to do your project we'll be here to help you.
 
Thanks, Tom. I'm in the demo stages on the old bathroom/laundry room area but I have a lot of projects on my list. I still need to repair the botched floor job in my bathroom and I would like to replace the tub surround and go from 3 knobs (hot, cold, diverter) to a single lever while still keeping my old cast iron tub-- but the tub/shower upgrade there is low priority. Highest priority is getting the floor in there good enough that I can tape down my sheet vinyl and install the toilet. I've got the toilet in a box ready to go in.

Once I have a usable toilet in that bathroom, it will be easier to move on to tearing out the fugly avocado green one piece fiberglass tub/shower unit that must have been put in before the doorways were built (bc that thing won't fit through the 24" door). I'll need to put in a shower with grab bars for her and tear the floor out down to the joists to replace it with a good sturdy subfloor and install the sheet vinyl that is rolled up in her bedroom.

I'm still debating whether to do her bathroom first or fix the laundry room. Because having the laundry room fixed up will make things so much easier. Right now we have to go through a 34" hallway and around a corner into a very cramped space where the floor is all messed up and we bump in to the wall when loading and unloading the machines. In the old bathroom the toilet is crammed in a 23" alcove so no one can use it (plus the fill valve messed up on the toilet), shower doesn't even have a P-trap & is not usable, and it's just a bad setup.

I have to tear out 2 non-loadbearing walls, replace the subfloor/substrate down to the joists, raise & straighten the header for the exterior door, bump the doorway to the new bathroom over a few inches so the door will have room to swing in without the knob hitting the wall, rough in plumbing and electrical, buy & installs some sort of flooring (either vinyl plank or sheet vinyl), move washer & dryer in to old bathroom, get a new toilet and shower/tub unit for the new bathroom, etc. I know I'll use sheet vinyl in the bathroom. The bathroom is lower priority than the laundry room though. The good news is, at least some of the plumbing is already in place. I can bump over the water supply lines from the old lavatory to work for the washing machine, I can bump over water supply lines from the old washing machine position for the tub/shower, and the water supply lines are pretty much already in place for the new lavatory. I can cut off and extend the old toilet supply line to have it feed the new toilet line-- it's just a matter of tying in to the old stuff. It's all PVC for the cold and CPVC for the hot. I'm thinking of using PEX to replace at least some of it. I've always worked with PVC & CPVC, but I have a friend who has worked with PEX.

Man, I'm babbling away. LOL. I looked up the check valves and I saw a kind that uses a solvent weld and another kind that has threads. If they aren't prone to failure, I'd probably go with the solvent weld kind. Can they be installed for toilet supply lines? I want to add a shattaf to the toilet supply line, but don't want to risk any backflow. Frodo suggested some atmospheric thing (can't remember what it was called now) but I think something inline would be much easier.
 
Didn’t do much today or tomorrow, but next week I have planned working in and around my flush-up toilet in my basement. I don’t care how much I love my family, I don’t care to be this “intimate “ with them.
Do they make armpit length neoprene gloves??
 
Yes. They sell 27" long PVC gloves. Basically they have some very long ones used by veterinarians. You can search for other options as well.

I rescued a lost kitten today, but didn't bring it home. My brother is still in town and the kitten is at a friend's house sleeping. Adorable little thing.
 
Zanne when I told you check valves I meant backflow vacuum breakers. Here's a picture. Sorry for the confusion. That set screw has
to be broken off for the plumbing inspector to see and then the vacuum breaker can't be taken off by someone else.backflow preventer.jpg
 

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