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In the retirement community I often work in (repairing shelving today, fixing doorbells, changing out smoke detectors) one of my clients, then tells me that there seems to be an issue with their Watts Hot Water Recirculating System. This is the Watts 500800 pump which is at the water heater in...

I do a lot of handyman work in a 55+ community of single family ranch homes. Their HOA has put out a notice about the (see attached photo) one piece plastic toilet shutoff/connectors. Apparently enough of them have failed with significant water damage that they urge changing them. I don’t want...

Client called about a leaky toilet (at the base). Removed the toilet and discovered a bit of damage to the builder’s grade (¼” plank) oak engineered flooring. It’s on a slab. The flange is solid and looks great. Toilet was flat and rigidly mounted. Guessing that the problem was a wax ring of...

Yesterday I installed my neighbors new Miele dishwasher. Their GE café series failed a few months ago. They had a Bosch 100 series and one other model installed and they didn’t like either one of them. When visiting a friend in New York, they came across the quite costly Miele and decided to...

So my neighbor asked me to come and tighten up their lavatory faucet. Which I did. Underneath the sink in the vanity, however the faucet is not connected directly to the shut off, so it goes through this contraption in the photo. Functionally it just seems to be a connector. It doesn’t seem to...

How can I determine the correct cartridges for this faucet? Don’t have positive shutoff; the bathroom faucets drip.

Not my project but a nice solution to a simple request. Client needed a “powder room” on the first floor of her home on a crawl space. I tend not to take on such projects instead focusing on repairs and installations rather than major renovations including adding a toilet where none was...

Every now and then some topic comes up here, VFD is mentioned, and then dismissed as unreliable, expensive, or what have you. I'm not going to dismiss @Valveman and his cycle stop valve, nor his experience. However I have found it hard to believe that VFDs are so tainted. In a domestic well...

OK so on occasion, I go into some new construction and inevitably what I see are shower and tub valves floating in space. They are only held in place by the PEX tubing they are attached to. Clearly, many of these valves have holes for mounting. I would think that one would want these things...

So, my brother owns a very weird house in Los Cerillos, New Mexico. It's a geodesic dome. Built by an eccentric in the late 1980s and never quite finished and lots of things done in very mysterious ways. My brother is smart but has had to learn a lot of everything (plumbing, heating, electrical...

So, the client asked me to come and do a minor little home maintenance item for them, which I accomplished in 10 minutes. Then, they asked me to take a look at their outside fireplace, which is actually in a covered screened in porch. They had a suspicion that things were not done correctly, and...

Trying to help my brother out here. He lives in a home in New Mexico, with a peculiar water system to say the least. The community has an above ground tank (on his property but down a hill). That's the water source. There is a pump that pumps from the tank (source) to smaller tanks located in...

I just installed (replaced) a disposal at my neighbor's home. Yes, another neighbor replacing the old small GE with a Big-Ass ISE. [Another victim of Lego block vs. disposal. Lego always wins in the long run. These young boys around here trash everything.] This was a double bowl sink, large...

Any of you experienced, either personally or professionally, mold in a dishwasher? I'm NOT interested in tricks, tips or techniques for cleaning it. That I know. But my neighbor seems to get mold in her Kitchen Aid regularly. They regularly have to take out the racks etc. and power wash them...

I was helping a single older woman friend today by installing a new faucet in her kitchen and a new dishwasher. Everything leaked in that kitchen. The main pump drive on the dishwasher which damaged the floor in the family room, the shut off valves were leaking and basically didn’t work, the...

A friend of mine is building a new home. He complains about the noise that the dishwasher currently makes in his older home, only when draining. No air gap is required or used here (just high loop), but the conventional way of draining a dishwasher is either into the disposal or into the sink...

While the plumbing in my home works well, my next door neighbor (with an identical home and identical plumbing system) has had one major sewage blockage, and a second minor one in the past few months. He claims no normal offense: no unsavory or inappropriate things tossed in the toilet. So, he...

My friend and neighbor up the street just had a water heater failure in his home. New home, (2018 build). Electric water heater in attic. $850,000 home. Pan overflowed, ceiling, and insulation damage. Gas service at house, but builder likes electric because they are cheap. No venting. Who cares...

Wow. So, my wife drops an earring back down the drain in the bathroom. Gold. She think's its gone, and I tell her no, it's in the trap. She, of unbelieving nature, relents a bit and asks me to check. She's doubtful it will be found. Lo and behold, instead of the standard 1.25" P-Trap with...