Plumbing Results

The Dunedin Plumbing Truck pulled up to our house bright and early, as promised, this morning to check out Gladys' old pipes.  The good news is that we have cast iron pipes rather than a cheap composite pipe that is cardboard coated in tar paper. More good news is that the pipes are not disturbed by tree roots in any way.  The bad news is that the iron pipes are now 53 years old, so they are rough and corroded inside, and they will fail sometime within the next five to ten years.

As we watched the camera snake through the pipes, we noticed a couple of rough places where paper could get caught, but on the whole the pipes were open and not narrowed too badly.  One place seemed to dip down a bit and collect water, so that is a watch area for the future.

We also learned that while our new Kohler toilets are great for being a 1.4 gallon flush that saves water, they are not the best choice for sending enough water down the pipes.  Jim, the plumber, recommended Gerber toilets as the best choice for a good-flushing toilet.  Who knew?  I have never heard of Gerber toilets since I only associate that name with baby food. Hey, maybe Gerber has both ends covered!

We did find out where the pipe comes out of the house in front of the master bedroom, and we also learned that our kitchen pipes backtrack away from the main city connection and Y into the main house connection somewhere under the master bedroom floor. Strange. It's good to know where the pipes come out of the house since here in Florida they are only buried about a foot deep. Now I know where to avoid digging when I try to plant bushes someday under the bedroom windows.

Disturbed dirt in front of the master bedroom windows
indicate where the pipes come out of the house.

Jim told us that our plumbing was not a question of IF the pipes will need replacing, but WHEN the pipes will need replacing.  He suggested that when that time comes, we expose the pipes ourselves, cut out the part of the driveway where the pipes run under it to give them access to lay the new pipe, and have everything ready for them to just disconnect the old, pull it up, and replace it with PVC pipes.  He said that they will pull all of the permits and will have the job inspected to keep the city happy, but that if we do the prep work ourselves, we can save probably one-third of the total cost.

Shiny, new hose connections now give us no
excuse not to wash the car and truck!

While Jim was here, we also had him replace the hose bibs on the house.  We have three hose connections outside, and every one of them leaked.  The one on the front of the house dripped so badly that Rick finally put a cap on it.  Since Jim was already here, we avoided another service call expense by having him replace the faucets.  We again learned something: the connections are all 1/2 inch instead of 3/4 inch connections which is why the hoses do not have a super amount of water coming out of the hose.  Additionally, we learned that if you have old plumbing that needs unscrewing from outside the house, the trick is to heat the connections thoroughly.  Once heated, they easily unscrew without damaging the copper pipes coming out of the house. We both are thrilled to now have three hose connections that actually work without leaking.  They did not cost us that much, and Jim had the total replacement job done in half an hour.

This was another educational day for us as we gained new insight to how plumbing works in Florida, and especially to how plumbing was installed in this subdivision 50+ years ago.  I have always said that knowledge is power, and this knowledge will help us better determine when we need to take further action on our plumbing here.  When that time comes, we also now know what we must do to make the job as easy and as cost effective as possible. An old ad campaign for the power company talked about living smarter, and that is what we try to do as we continue to make Gladys a wonderful old home.