PDA

View Full Version : Any Real Plumbers Around here?



Terry Teadtke
04-04-2009, 11:46 PM
It's time to finely replace the old 1/2' water supply line from the meter with 1' copper and I'm curious if it makes any difference as to where it enters the basement. I'm going to be re-plumbing the entire house so I don't have to worry about attaching to existing water lines. The reason I ask is the existing supply line goes clear across the back yard before it enters the house a couple feet from the breaker box and and I would like to bring it in closer to the end of the house so I don't have to dig as far.

Thanks

Terry

Jim Becker
04-05-2009, 9:35 AM
Not a plumber and don't play one on TV. But water line access and the meter location should be in a place that makes it practical to service them. What might seem like a better place in an unfinished basement, might not be so in the future if it were to be finished, for example. There is also the issue that the water line is often used as a grounding point for your electrical and that may account for the current entry location, not to mention the convenience of having all the utilities in the same general location. It's good that you're asking for plumber input, however, as there may be other issues that apply, too.

Joe Pelonio
04-05-2009, 9:37 AM
I used to work for a water district, and saw some pretty odd arrangements for houselines, even exposed, going up cliffs.

Most of our dirty water or low flow complaints were related to old galvanized, so it's good that you are doing this. If you don't have really great pressure at the meter, try to keep the new line as straight as possible. Other than that as long as you have a freeze-protected but readily accessible shutoff valve at the house end of the line the location where it enters the house shouldn't make any difference.

David G Baker
04-05-2009, 10:45 AM
Terry,
First off I am not a licensed plumber, just a "at one time" want to be plumber.
Touch bases with your local water department. Where I once lived in California if you worked in any area near the meter you had to contact them and if you used their water shut off tool and had a problem with a water leak or impacted the water main in the area of the meter they would come out and fix it for nothing. If you didn't contact them prior to doing the work and didn't use their special tool and had a problem you would be charged. Replace all of your valves with a high quality ball valves. Add extra valves so you can isolate areas of your home so if there is a problem in that area you can shut down that part of your home's water and still have water to the other areas of your home. Protect all of your water lines from freezing if you live in an area where the temperature ever gets in freezing range. Do your plumbing in stages if you can't finish the job in one day. Plan ahead by purchasing more fittings and fixtures than you anticipate needing, this will save you many trips to the Borg. Use the heavier duty copper pipe for your underground work and if you live in an area where the local water supply has water that is corrosive to copper pipe use the heavier pipe for all of your plumbing. Use 3/4 inch pipe for all of your runs and then drop down to 1/2 inch for supply to your fixtures. Use ball valves under your sinks because in many cases the cheap under sink shut-off valves have plastic stems and have a tendency to snap off. I have never done a plumbing job where I didn't have at least one leak. They now have things that you can put in a pipe that will block moisture and dissolve when pressurized if you have a sweat fitting that has water dripping in it. Use the new stuff instead of pieces of bread. You can not sweat pipe that is wet, the steam caused by the torch will blow the solder out of the fitting. When sweating near wood keep a spray bottle of water handy and protect the wood from fire by using the fire retardant material sold by the Borgs or do like I do, use a piece of metal to protect the wood. Make sure your solder is the lead free type. keep your soldering paste and paste brush clean. Keep a bucket of water handy with a wet piece of material to wipe off the sweated fitting after soldering, makes the fitting much nicer looking and stops you from getting after solder burns on your body parts.
As far as where you install your supply line, I think basic common sense and safety applies. Draw out your main lines ahead of time to make sure that they work in an easy flow pattern that is the least invasive to your home and convenient for your installation. If you plan on a lawn sprinkler system in your back yard run a line from the area where the water supply comes into your home and if possible use a 1 inch line if your back yard has heavy watering requirements. Isolate your toilet when you first turn on the water main, make sure the valve supplying your toilet is off and disconnect the water line from the toilet tank and put it into a bucket so you protect the plumbing inside of your toilet tank from debris that is inside of the lines from the work you have done. This may not be necessary if you don't have one of the newer exotic type toilet tanks that have an expensive bladder and plumbing inside of the tank. Make sure your hot water heater is isolated so it doesn't get drained and flood or burn you with hot water.
Tie all of your electric areas that need to be grounded to your plumbing as required by code. If you still are going to have some galvanized pipe tied into your system get some dielectric couplings where copper and galvanized are joined. ( I have had bad luck with dielectric couplings so when ever I use them I use threaded 4 inch pieces of brass pipe from the copper to the coupling and from coupling to galvanized) Support your pipe well and isolate your pipe from touching things as much as possible, this prevents noises from traveling through your home. I also install whole house water filters where the water enters the home. If you do this make sure that you use a copper wire bridge to each side of the filter to maintain a good connection to ground through your plumbing system.
Hope this helps.

Terry Teadtke
04-05-2009, 2:29 PM
If I bring the water line into the house where I want to I will not have to trench through the LOML flowerbed and disturb her Trillium's. Fortunately in my area I only have to go 18" deep due to the mild winters. Unfortunately we have several large Douglas fir trees around the house and we're in an old creek bed so I'm going to run into a few roots and a million or so rocks. The only reason I can think of bringing the line into the basement near the existing line is for the ground coming out of the breaker box. When I replaced the supply from the meter and re-plumbed my house in Portland, rather than attaching the ground to the new supply line, I ran the ground out to 2 8' copper rods pounded into the ground 20' apart as per code. Apparently grounding the breaker box to the water supply line causes electrolysis. The basement will never be finished (and I don't think it would matter if it was) so I think I'll run the line into the house a little closer to the meter and save myself the extra trenching.

I'll have to ask the 'experts' at the BORG but I think the blue striped copper is the more heavy duty copper pipe and I plan on running it through the entire house. Unfortunately the water in Vancouver (just across the river from Portland) is well water from the Columbia River aquifer and has a lot of minerals in it so I'm going to put in a water filter and water softener. I'm completely unfamiliar with water softeners because Portland water comes from the pristine Bull Run reservoir on Mt Hood and is the best tap water I've ever tasted and very low in mineral content. Virtually no one in Portland has a water softener nor do they need one. Why people in Portland buy bottled water for every day use I have no clue, other than they think it's fashionable.

Thanks again,

Terry

John Fricke
04-05-2009, 4:51 PM
Here in Michigan we have water hard enough to walk on, often with very high Iron content. I would highly recommend an on demand system. They recharge based on volumn of water used instead of the older style that operate on daily or weekly schedule. Your installer can recommend a recharge rate based on the water test. We installed one a few years ago and cut our salt usage by 1/2 and have much more consistant water quality.

Bob Lloyd
04-05-2009, 5:01 PM
Terry
I do not know if they allow it in your area but have you considered pex instead of copper for piping in your house? It is widely used in most areas except California I believe.

Jim Becker
04-05-2009, 9:01 PM
Terry
I do not know if they allow it in your area but have you considered pex instead of copper for piping in your house? It is widely used in most areas except California I believe.

This is exactly what I was going to ask! I was planning on using PEX for our addition project (and actually did use a little of it to get through a difficult area not ever going to be seen by inspectors), but our township has an ordinance that requires copper. IMHO, PEX is a superior water system and if I had it, I wouldn't have to worry about the acidic water we have eating through the pipes years down the road.

Chris Padilla
04-06-2009, 12:28 PM
In most areas, I believe the mains coming in must be copper. After that, one can normally go with PEX from there. PEX is great in that it can be 'wired' much like electricity and allow local shutoffs. It is such a pain to turn off water to the whole house just to deal with a toilet or a leaky kitchen faucet.

Copper comes in varying thicknesses. "M" is what most use inside the house. It has the thinnest walls. "L" has a bit thicker wall and "K" has the thickest walls. I believe that L and K are good for direct burial. Personally, I like to use M most everywhere although I like to use L for stubs that poke outside the wall for hook-ups. Since they are somewhat exposed, I think they should be a tad beefier than the what is protected in the wall....

Did you know that in the city of San Francisco that the DWV system must be made from copper? Wow...a very expensive drain, waste, vent system...most places use ABS PVC...cheap as dirt.

Von Bickley
04-06-2009, 4:49 PM
In our area, the main supply line is usually PVC and then CPVC everywhere in the house. Works great and is easy to work with.......

David G Baker
04-06-2009, 5:11 PM
San Francisco believes that the DWV system must be copper due to the earthquake/fire potential at least that was what a friend of mine was told. Did you know that there is still quite a bit of underground water pipe in San Francisco that is made from lead? I think they were put in after the '06 quake. With as strict as San Francisco's building code is you would think that they would force it to be removed and replaced. If you live in the city of SF, never, never anger a building code inspector or you may have to leave the city if you want to do any work on a building.

Jim Becker
04-06-2009, 5:49 PM
Copper comes in varying thicknesses. "M" is what most use inside the house. It has the thinnest walls. "L" has a bit thicker wall and "K" has the thickest walls. I believe that L and K are good for direct burial. Personally, I like to use M most everywhere although I like to use L for stubs that poke outside the wall for hook-ups. Since they are somewhat exposed, I think they should be a tad beefier than the what is protected in the wall....

You may be able to get away with type M if you have city water, but that stuff only lasts for an all-too short period of time for folks on well systems, especially like ours where the water is acidic. (Normal in many places) I had to completely gut and rebuild our powder room after we first moved in here because someone put a single 5' length of type M in the wall and it pinholed in about 12 places...the sound of water rushing in the wall was scary!

Von Bickley
04-06-2009, 5:52 PM
You may be able to get away with type M if you have city water, but that stuff only lasts for an all-too short period of time for folks on well systems, especially like ours where the water is acidic. (Normal in many places) I had to completely gut and rebuild our powder room after we first moved in here because someone put a single 5' length of type M in the wall and it pinholed in about 12 places...the sound of water rushing in the wall was scary!

The "Well Water" in our area will make copper pipe look like a sprinkler system.....

Terry Teadtke
04-06-2009, 6:27 PM
I really like the idea of running plastic lines and using a distribution center like a breaker box but I think I will stick to copper.

Terry

Prashun Patel
04-06-2009, 8:43 PM
You should take your question to terrylove.com. It's about as helpful a forum as SMC - for plumbing questions. Some of the pros are a little rough around the edges, but they're helpful nonetheless.

Rob Cooper
04-06-2009, 9:05 PM
I really like the PEX system, they recently came out with a heavier version pipe for sunlight resistance. Since you are digging a trench and running copper, consider laying some capped pex for future backup use. It will cost you less than $50 per 100' and will be there if you ever have an underground leak you don't want to dig up.

David G Baker
04-06-2009, 11:32 PM
When I did a bunch of plumbing in my Michigan home I did not know about type M copper pipe being a potential problem with well water. So far I haven't had any problem but have been eying PEX as a replacement if I do have a problem. I will have to test my water to see if it is acidic.