Renovation & Design
Renovation & Design
Don't flush your money for small plumbing issues
Question: We live in a raised, three-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow In Oakbank. Our toilets have always made a loud draining noise — kind of like a suction sound — when we flush.
I am wondering if there is a blockage or something somewhere.
I would appreciate any comments you could offer.
Thank you,
— Debbie Anania
Question: We have a 10-year-old bungalow.
Last month, we had our ensuite and master bathroom countertops and sinks changed. It seems now we have a very occasional sewer odour coming from the ensuite sink when we turn on the water. It might not even happen for a couple of days and when the odour occurs, it goes away in seconds. The sink in the ensuite did not require any changes to the existing plumbing, it lined up perfectly. All my traps are full, I have drained the hot water tank and the vent stack is not frozen. This one makes no sense to me at all.
I enjoy your weekly articles,
— Len & Diane Sul
Answer: Plumbing issues can often be confusing and sometimes difficult to diagnose for many homeowners, but are sometimes no more than a nuisance. Differentiating between a serious issue and a minor one can often save costly investigation by a licensed plumber.
How the plumbing fixtures in our homes transfer water and waste products to the municipal sewer or private system is often a mystery to many homeowners. This may primarily be the situation because the majority of the drains are covered or underground. Also, if things work well, which is often the case, there is little to be concerned with. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, may be well-suited advice about the drains in our homes.
The only time we normally fuss over our waste disposal is when something appears to malfunction. The tough part may be in deciding what is and isn’t a real problem.
In addressing the first question, are the toilets otherwise working properly? Is the waste and paper properly draining from the bowl after a single flush, despite the suction sound? If the answers to these two questions are yes, then you should be able to go on with your daily life without much worries.
Toilets do often make loud noises as they expel their contents, so your description does not appear to be an issue.
However, if you experience poor performance from your commodes, such as requiring multiple flushes, partial water remaining in the bowl after flushing, running on or other common malfunctions, then there is likely a problem. Opening up the tank and inspecting the operation after flushing may also yield an answer to your inquiry. If the operation is poor, calling in a licensed plumber to inspect and fix the toilets, including unbolting and lifting the bowls from the floor, may be required. If all looks good, put the magazine back in the rack and ignore the noisy fixtures — or buy quieter units.
Regarding the second question, it is doubtful there is a serious venting or sewer gas issue if the new sinks and fixtures were replaced without any modification to the drains.
Having said that, I frequently see traps and sink drains improperly configured when renovated. If the pipes are not installed with a classic P-trap, or are otherwise improperly installed, a sewer gas smell may be detected. If the drains were improperly reinstalled with an S-trap, or some other funny angles or slopes, siphoning of the trap may be possible.
This defect could definitely lead to sewer gas intrusion after the sink is drained. If you are not familiar with the above configurations I have just discussed, call a licensed plumber to inspect the drains and rectify any misaligned or improperly installed pipes.
The other possibility is the smell you are describing is not a sewer odour at all, but simply the odour of debris in the drain. Often, hair, soap and other rather nasty material gets sucked down our sink drains and lodged inside the pipes. This material will become wet every time the faucet is turned on and will decay. The odours from this can mimic those inside the drain pipes and sewer, but may only require a cleaning or flushing with a chemical drain opener to eliminate the smell.
This may also be a new occurrence if the new sinks have missing or differently configured overflows than the old sinks. The overflow is designed to prevent a flood if the faucet is left accidentally running, but may also be an area where a lot of gunk builds up.
Whether your concern is proper drainage from funny sounding toilets or smelly sink drains, determining whether there is a serious issue or not will be important before calling in the repair troops.
If the fixtures drain well, don’t back up and have properly configured traps and drain pipes, then regular cleaning and maintenance may be all that is required. If the operation or installation is poor — a call to the local plumber may be in order.
Ari Marantz is the owner of Trained Eye Home Inspection Ltd. and the past president of the Canadian Association of Home & Property Inspectors — Manitoba (cahpi.mb.ca). Questions can be emailed to the address below. Ari can be reached at 204-291-5358 or check out his website at trainedeye.ca.
trainedeye@iname.com
Renovation & Design
Weeding out the most toxic kinds of vegetation
Plants cannot run from existential threats. They have to sit there silently and take a licking.
But they’re not stupid. Many grow armour of sorts — though how deer can devour rose thorns without leaving a trail of blood has always puzzled me. More insidiously, some plants produce chemicals that either assault your skin or make you sick if you eat them.
As a result, many pose risks to those who stumble across them, whether in the garden, the city park or on a trail.
Alfred Goossens, a retired flavour chemist, has a Virginia home with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains near a popular hiking trail, Old Rag. I joined him and Don Hearl, both Virginia Master Naturalists, in a stroll of Goossens’s 14-acre property.
Along a tree line just a few steps from the front door, they pointed out a suite of potentially harmful plants, namely horse nettle (poisonous fruit), Virginia creeper (skin irritant), poison ivy (enough said) and pokeweed (toxic from head to toe).
"If you took people outside like this, they wouldn’t know what was poisonous or nonpoisonous," Hearl said. "They would just refer to them as weeds."
Anyone who has spent time in the garden has probably had a run-in with poison ivy. Even savvy gardeners can miss seedlings that sprout amid other vegetation. Other toxic plants are not as common or as firm in the mind’s eye, but still can cause real problems.
Earlier this year, Goossens and other members of the naturalists’ Old Rag Chapter identified a tuber that a resident had dug up and eaten, thinking it was a sweet potato. It was actually the large fleshy taproot of the pokeweed, which is highly toxic and put the man in intensive care and close to death before the naturalists (and his doctors) came to the rescue.
I’ve long considered the fact that although the garden is full of potentially lethal vegetation, including daffodil bulbs and colchicums, this doesn’t play out in mass poisonings. You don’t see yards littered with corpses. But maybe I’ve been too complacent.
Christopher Holstege, medical director of the Blue Ridge Poison Center, tells me that the centre received 7,182 calls between 2007 and 2017 pertaining to plant exposures. Most are handled over the phone, some callers need immediate medical attention and some require lifesaving intensive care. He recounted the case of a 26-year-old man who had gone foraging for ramps, the wild leek delicacy, and picked and ate the foliage of the false hellebore instead. The leaves are similar — broad with long folds — but false hellebore (Veratrum viride) is decidedly not for eating. (Nor is it related to the popular garden hellebore or Lenten rose.) After just four bites, the patient became ill — in the hospital his vital signs showed a heart rate of 42 beats per minute. You don’t need to be a medical pro to know that’s alarmingly sluggish. Thankfully, he recovered.
(Many seemingly innocuous garden plants are also toxic to pets. Lists of potential problem plants for dogs and cats have been compiled by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.)
Goossens said it’s a safe bet that for all the thousands who contacted the poison centre in Charlottesville, which covers the entire western half of Virginia, there were many more whose encounters with toxic plants go unreported.
Here are five plants you should give a wide berth (including poison hemlock):
Pokeweed: Pokeweed is everywhere, in both town and country, because the seeds in its distinctive clusters of black berries are planted by birds. As a perennial, it gets larger each year and can attain the size of a large shrub by late summer. The stems are thick, upright and branched, and have a pinkish-red cast to them. Avoid skin contact with the plant and keep children away from the berries, which are not unlike blueberries. Pokeweed is one of the most common sources of plant poisoning in the United States. It is also known as "poke salad," because in the south it has been traditionally used as an edible green, but only the young spring growth and only after it has been boiled twice. These culinary nuances are being lost in the 21st century, according to Hearl, who grew up in southwestern Virginia. Grow some lettuce or kale, and leave the pokeweed alone.
As for the berries, Hearl was warned against eating them "at a very young age, and I have started to do the same thing with my own grandchildren."
Poison ivy: As they say, "Leaves of three, let it be." The plant forms thick, hairy roots in old vines that climb trees, but younger forms may resemble shrubs. Even when young, every part of poison ivy contains a blistering agent named urushiol. If you live in a locale where you can burn yard waste, be careful not to have poison ivy as part of the mix, because the oil is released into the smoke and settles on the skin. Inhalation is particularly dangerous, and Holstege said he has had to treat firefighters afflicted during prescribed burns.
According to the book Weeds of the Northeast, at least six out of every 10 people get dermatitis from poison ivy. One fairly common source of contact is through your dogs and cats. They roll around in the vegetation, get the oil on their coats and then come indoors and invite petting.
Jimson weed: The common name is a corruption of Jamestown weed, but it is the botanic name that gives a better clue to its hazards. Jimson weed is related to the daturas and brugmansias of the Americas, long used in shaman rituals to induce hallucinations. These plants are highly toxic and potentially lethal if the leaves or seeds are ingested or made into a tea. Who would purposefully take this poison?
"Primarily adolescents," Holstege said. Kids in search of a high are usually soon seeking an emergency room instead.
Poison hemlock: It is hard to grasp that the carrot family would include some of the most malevolent plants on earth, including poison hemlock. Its toxin, coniine, causes muscle paralysis and death.
A herbaceous biennial once confined to the Old World, poison hemlock is now at large in Virginia and across the United States. It has the characteristic lacy leaves and white flower umbels of its clan, which also includes Queen Anne’s lace. It is not to be confused with the native conifer named hemlock.
Why would anybody mess with poison hemlock? By mistake. Its root resembles the edible root of the wild parsnip, its leaves look like parsley and its seeds suggest aniseed. Its hollow stems have been made into toy whistles with tragic results.
Giant hogweed: Reports of giant hogweed’s spread to the Mid-Atlantic have induced a fair amount of dread. This is another summer-flowering carrot relative, but it can grow to 10 feet or more in its second or third year. It is perhaps in its juvenile stage, when it is smaller, that it poses a greater risk through mistaken identity.
The sap contains a blistering agent named furocoumarin; don’t touch any part of this plant.
"There is no worse plant than giant hogweed," said Goossens, who grew up in the Netherlands, where it’s a fairly common weed.
"The blisters are horrible, very, very painful," he said.
"If you get the sap in our eyes, the chance of getting permanent blindness is significant."
— Washington Post
Renovation & Design
Rust likely spells doom for old lawn mower
QUESTION: I have a beloved lawn mower — starts every time on one pull! But it has a rust hole on the body. Is there any way to repair this?
Answer: If you ask a company that repairs lawn equipment, you’ll probably be told that you’d be better off buying a new mower.
The rust you’re seeing was undoubtedly caused by buildup of wet grass clippings against the back of the mower deck, the part that supports the motor and shields the spinning blades. The damage you see is probably just the start of a more widespread problem. Tip the mower and inspect the underside of the deck. If the rust is indeed widespread, it might not be worth trying to patch the area where the rust has completely eaten through, because the surrounding metal will probably succumb soon, too. Plus, there could be a safety issue if you try to mow with a machine that has little solid metal to support the motor and shield the blades.
"If you start to see holes, it’s generally rusting from the underside," said a service technician at Virginia Outdoor Power Equipment in Fairfax, Va. "It’s time to retire the mower and move on to a new unit."
A technician at Vienna Lawnmower Sales & Service was just as discouraging.
"They call rust a cancer for a reason," he said. "Once it starts and you get a hole, it’s pretty much the end of the line for it."
Mower-repair companies can order a replacement deck, but by the time you pay for labour, the cost could be 75 per cent or more of what a new mower would cost. Less-expensive mower decks are listed on various websites, but you’d need a way to install them.
These concerns aside, because the mower has been working fine, there are ways to patch the holes. Simplest and cheapest, though not the most elegant, is to cover the damaged area with duct tape. Clean and dry the surface first, and use a heavy-duty type, such as Gorilla Heavy-Duty Duct Tape. Niki Popken, a consumer affairs specialist for Gorilla Glue in Cincinnati, suggested wire-brushing the damaged area first to get down to shiny metal where the paint is gone. Otherwise, she said, the tape will bond to the rust, which is prone to flaking. Apply a couple of layers of tape, with each new layer extending out a little farther than the one underneath. Multiple layers will be stronger in case the mower blades hit a pebble and fling it toward you or a bystander.
You also can patch the holes with metal flashing, cut big enough to extend past the rusted area. You can glue on small patches with a two-part epoxy, such as J-B Weld Twin Tube Cold Weld. For a larger patch, where it might be hard to bend the flashing to match the contour of the mower deck and hold it in place while the epoxy cures, you could secure the patch with pop rivets — a way to fasten two sheets of metal together when you only can access the front surface. You will need a rivet gun, a hand-operated contraption that looks a bit like a wrench, and a few rivets. You will also need a drill with a bit matched to the shank diameter of the rivets.
Or, for the tidiest patch, apply multiple layers of fiberglass cloth with epoxy resin. Wearing rubber gloves, hold an oversize patch of cloth in place and brush on the resin. Press with the brush to form the mesh to the curve of the mower deck. Build up the patch with multiple layers.
Once dry, the patch can be painted red if you want, so the neighbours won’t notice your handiwork.
— Washington Post
