#plumbing — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Gay Curmudgeon @[email protected] · 2026-08-16 · 11:20 UTC

The biggest Do-It-Yourself Project I ever tackled was building my first home. My father and I did all the work except the masonry, and it took years. Pennwood, 1980. #doityourself #project #projects #homeproject #homeprojects #construction #houseconstruction #stickbuilt #stickbuilthouse #stickbuilthouses #woodwork #plumbing #electrical #sanding #roofing #shingling #homesweethome #homefires #pennwood #pennsylvania #twentiethcentury #building #builders #job #avocation #vocation #1980s

#doityourself #project #projects #homeproject #homeprojects #construction

Ivi Choc @[email protected] · 2026-07-19 · 09:48 UTC

#ShortBreak #shorts #DoomScrollBreak #GoodToKnow #advice #AdviceWithAnn #household #plumbing #water #drinkingwater #greywater

(On Madeira we have something similar. After the meter the city water pipe splits. One pipe directly feeds the kitchen, the other a 1000L IBC-tank outside. The returning pipe feeds the 150l water boiler and the bathroom.
The city water replaced the formerly used levada - open irrigation channel coming down from the hills - as water source.)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EzVLdxKzj5I

#shortbreak #shorts #doomscrollbreak #goodtoknow #advice #advicewithann

Inside the Red Head's Head @[email protected] · 2026-07-05 · 00:37 UTC

Alert! Alarm!

My beloved bride had a cool idea today. We have a Sonos audio system in our living room. It’s how we get surround sound and movie theater audio goodness. She wanted to upgrade the system. Good idea, right? She ordered a new beam and we went to Best Buy to pick it up.

After, while we were still in the parking lot, she had another great idea. Wanna go for a mini road trip somewhere? Sure! How about the ocean? Sure! Off we went.

When we got home a couple hours later, Jen heard a noise. Oh wait! You don’t know the back story. Hold on a second while I fill you in.

Back story: Our house used to have a garage. Years ago we had it remodeled into a primary bedroom suite with an attached bathroom. The outflow pipe from the bathroom was far away from the outflow for the rest of the house and we had to have a pump installed. The pump is under the floor with a little trap door to get to it. That trap door had not been opened in the 500 years since we finished the remodel. It is located in a closet and we had put a big closet organizer into the closet and part of it was sitting on the trap door.

Okay, back to the main story. When we got home from the ocean a couple of hours later, Jen heard a noise. She was standing next to the bathroom and I was on the other side of the room. I thought the noise was a bird being loud and obnoxious outside. She said no, it wasn’t a bird. I then thought it was the mini-split system’s door being squeaky. She said no, it was not the mini-split. I stood next to her so that I could hear what she was hearing and I heard it too.

There were two sounds. One as an alarm beeping like crazy. The other was the pump running more or less continuously. I went into the closet with the trap door and sure enough, the beeping was coming from there. Well, shit.

We both had a job to do from that point. Mine was to clear almost everything out of the closet (there was a lot of stuff in there) and open the trap door. Jen’s was to find a plumber. Oh yeah, it’s Independence Day. A national holiday. Almost everyone in the country had the day off (except for the poor staff at Best Buy).

I was able to get to the pump. I had to move almost an entire wardrobe and partially disassemble the organizer but I did it. Jen was able to eventually get a plumber on the phone who could not come help tonight but did offer to help talk us through shutting down the pump until they could come… on Monday. While she was giving the plummer the details I found that the alarm beep was tied to a flashing red light with a label that said to open the unit to see what was causing the alarm. Well, I wasn’t doing that. There was also a button that said push to silence alarm. I pushed it. Oh what a relief.

So the alarm was still going off but it was silent now and at the plumber’s suggestion we killed the power to the pump from the circuit box. The situation has been remedied for now. On Monday the plumber will come and tell us that we need to replace the unit which should cost $10000000000000. Would that be preferable to finding out there is a clog in the sewage pipe? I don’t know. Would it be preferable to finding out there is a leak in the sewage pipe? Probably. I mean, our house doesn’t smell like donald trump so I don’t think our en suite bathroom is shitting itself. We’ll find out on Monday though.

Eventually we were able to relax and that lead to us putting up the new Sonos system. It got a little annoying trying to link everything together in their app, but eventually it all worked and now we are watching Project Hail Mary (again) and enjoying the kick ass audio.

Tomorrow I think I am going to go into Boston really early in the morning and wander around Beacon Hill and the riverwalk along the Charles with my cameras. I’m also officially into the 50 Songs in 90 Days Challenge, so there will be music to make too.

One thing is for sure… we are not going to use the primary bedroom suite’s bathroom for a couple of days.

#Audio #plumber #Plumbing #surroundSound

#audio #plumber #plumbing #surroundsound

A Stone in the River @[email protected] · 2026-01-04 · 22:29 UTC

Welcome 2026

After last weekend’s main drain backup it turned out the plumbing wasn’t finished with us yet. Thursday afternoon the shower in the basement bathroom we’ve been using for the past month while our main bathroom remodel takes its sweet time, decided to leak. And it wasn’t one of those slow drip, drip leaks. But we can fix leaky faucets!

It turned out the plumbing was original to our 1952-built house and there are no longer tools and parts to fix it. So we had to call a plumber. He had to replace the shower/tub fixtures, but in order to do that, he had to cut a door-sized hole in the wall of the adjacent bedroom to access the pipes. He then had to replace the steel pipes with copper ones. And now we have new basic shower/tub fixtures and a large hole in the wall. But no more leak!

James and I do not have the tools or know-how to do drywall, so eventually we will need to hire a handyperson to come and do it for us. Since this is a guest bedroom and it is winter and people do not come visit Minnesota in the winter, especially our southern California and New Mexico family members, we can wait until spring or summer to have the wall repaired.

Meanwhile, my main bathroom remodel is not yet done. It is getting close though and I expect it will be completed this week. The tile is done and looks oh so pretty. The grab bars and folding shower chair are mounted. Now we just need a shower door, shower fixtures, a toilet and sink. And of course, with all the new and shiny, I’m looking at the medicine cabinet and wrinkling my nose because it is showing its 25-year-old age. And of course, new paint on the walls is going to need to happen too. When we contracted for the project we both naively thought the rest of the bathroom would not need changing. At least these things we really can do ourselves.

We had vegan black-eyed peas and pumpkin quesadillas on New Year’s Day. They can also be made with sweet potato or another winter squash. Last year we used butternut. Such a tasty meal! I got the recipe a couple years ago from the Washington Post and sadly it is trapped behind a paywall. However, if it is a recipe you are interested in, let me know and I can email it to you, I just can’t post it online.

Eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day is supposed to bring good luck. It’s a tradition from the southern part of the United States. My mom is from Oklahoma and grew up having to eat them on New Year’s, but scoffed at the tradition, along with a lot of other southern cultural things, as an adult. Her mom, my Granny, always had to have them, however. Due to a stroke that left her paralyzed on the left side of her body, she lived the last ten years of her life in a nursing home. My mom always had to go to the grocery store and buy a can of black-eyed peas to take to her otherwise she would never hear the end of it. Since Granny couldn’t cook, I assume my mom opened the can and Granny just ate them. I was generally still in my pajamas after sleeping in on New Year’s Day, and was never present for the eating of the black-eyed peas. I just remember my mom grumbling about silly superstitions.

Because of this, I never ate any until I started growing them in the garden several years ago. We tried them out in hoppin’ John and a few other dishes, but not until I came across the quesadilla recipe did we settle on our own “traditional” way to eat them on New Year’s Day. Do I believe that they bring me good luck? No, especially since after we ate them the basement bathroom leak happened. Is it a fun way to honor traditions and ancestors and have a tasty meal in the process? Absolutely!

We ended up with some extra cooked black-eyed peas and James was trying to figure out what meal he might add them to. He’s going to be making split pea soup and thought he could add them to the soup. What did I think about that? I shrugged, seemed like it would be fine.

He continued kitchening in silence, and then suddenly asked, “Do you think it will kill the green peaness?”

“What?!” I exclaimed, and scowled a little.

If you are wondering about my response, say “kill the green peaness” out loud.

James looked at me a bit confused. Then I re-ran what he said in my head and saw the jar of green split peas on the counter. Then I started laughing. Then he realized what I thought he said and started laughing too. I laughed so hard I had tears streaming down my face. We are still laughing about it. And now, of course, kill the green peaness has become a thing.

There’s snow on the ground and will be for several months yet, but I ordered my garden seeds! I posted my list last week, and now you can all roll your eyes or giggle because yes, it changed. But I have a good reason!

I was planning on ordering from four different places and remembered Sand Hill Preservation Center in Iowa. They are an heirloom seed place I bought sweet potato slips from a few years ago. I did not get a good sweet potato harvest but that is no fault of theirs. Their product was good, my growing was not because I refused to put down black plastic around the plants to keep the soil at the really warm temperature they like. Surely a sunny spot and some straw will be just fine? Well, since the sweet potatoes weren’t much larger than ping pong balls, the answer was no.

But I recalled that they have lots of really interesting garden seeds I had never seen anywhere else. So I browsed their website to see if I might be able to consolidate my seed order. Why yes, yes I could.

I still had to order from three places, but Sand Hill prices are so good, I was able to shift around some of what I was ordering from the other two places and overall spend much less on seeds and shipping. Of course I had to throw in two additional seeds packets! I added caraway to the order so I will have a supply for sourdough pumpernickel bread making. And I added an interesting herb I had never heard of before called beetberry.

Beetberry, Bitum capitatum, is a member of the amaranth family. The leaves can be eaten raw as a salad green or cooked, and are highly nutritious. The tiny red berries that follow the interesting looking flowers are high in anti-oxidants and can be used to make jams or desserts. The plant also has anti-inflammatory medicinal properties. Even better, it is an annual native to most of North America.

Only two additions, but good ones you have to agree! One of the delightful things about Sand Hill other than their variety and great prices, is that they have no online ordering. I had to download an order form, fill it out, print it off, and send it through the mail with a check. This is likely one of the reasons why their prices are so good. I don’t mind at all that the whole process takes a bit longer because none of the seeds I am getting from them will need to be started indoors until March.

Seeds all done. Next I need to write out my planting calendar.

My two week’s vacation is drawing to a close and it is back to wage work tomorrow. In spite of the topsy-turvy bathroom remodel and plumbing problems, it has been a wonderful and relaxing break. I managed to read 84 books in 2025, more than I ever have before. If you are interested in poking around, check out my LibraryThing list. It says 90 but that’s because it also includes several books I chose to not finish. And there are charts and graphs too if that sort of thing floats your boat, though I’m not certain of their accuracy.

I had some fun on my vacation sorting books on my bookshelves. And I made progress on my attic project too. All the carpet is up. Now I’m filling in the seams on the plywood floor which will then get sanded and painted with primer and then painted with floor paint. Little by little!

I hope your 2026 is off to a good start. Please send good thoughts that I will not have any additional plumbing issues for a very, very long time!

#atticCarpetProject #bathroomRemodel #beetberry #blackEyedPeas #Granny #holeInTheWall #NewYear #plumbing #SandHillPreservationCenter #seedCatalogs #splitPeaSoup

#atticcarpetproject #bathroomremodel #beetberry #blackeyedpeas #granny #holeinthewall

Mark @[email protected] · 2025-10-07 · 10:58 UTC

UBC launches world’s first mushroom-powered waterless toilet

#UBC #researchers are launching the world’s first #mushroom-powered #waterless #toilet, the #MycoToilet, at the UBC #Botanical #Garden on September 26.

The prototype turns human waste into nutrient-rich #compost using #mycelia—the root networks of mushrooms—and features a modern, #sustainable design that can be dropped into parks, remote communities and areas without #plumbing.

https://apsc.ubc.ca/news/2025/ubc-launches-worlds-first-mushroom-powered-waterless-toilet

#green #sewage #nature #eco