which_chick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
which_chick) wrote2019-01-31 01:43 pm
which_chick) wrote2019-01-31 01:43 pm
Entry tags:
At work today...
As you (may or may not) know, Bob, I work as a landlord. Like, that's my real job. I do not play "repair and rent apartments" on the weekends while continuing my exciting career as a field odonatologist or a colt starter or a knitter or a sourdough rye baker. My exciting career, such as it is, involves renting apartments to people, fixing stuff that breaks, and evicting people who don't pay the rent. That other stuff I do is non-remunerative hobbies, not my real job.
It's not terrible. This morning early I put a new kitchen faucet in for the people in 9. They're nice folks, pay their rent timely, no trouble, quiet as can be. Kitchen faucet (modern) started leaking up top between the faucet stems and the spout somewhere. It's not an o-ring, it's a problem in the stupid plastic that we use now instead of brass. Fatigue, probably. Faucet's a couple of years old. It only leaks when you turn the water on, not when the water is off.
I had shutoffs and decent supply lines so all I had to do was take out the old one and put in a new one. Took about thirty minutes.
Because of the leaking, I asked them to leave the under sink cupboard doors open for a couple of days to see if the cabinet floor will dry out. (It should, now that there isn't water pouring on it all the time.) However, it's old and it's chipboard so... it might fall apart, in which case I will be back in there reflooring the sink cupboard. No biggie, I've done those before and they're not terribly hard. When I have to rebuild them, I do them in 3/4" plywood with 2x4 supports underneath, ripped to fit. It takes about two hours, start to painted-and-done.
But, it might not need that (depends really on how thoroughly wet the chipboard got) and if it DOES need that, it needs to be dry first anyway. So, no hurry. Tenant will let me know in a week or so if it needs to be done. (I foreshadowed this with her so she won't feel bad if the cabinet floor bites it.)
After that, I stopped in over at W. 4th to look at the guy's under-sink issue wherein he allowed as how the "drain thingie" was leaking. Okay, so this is a double-bowl sink with center drain and the plastic drain trap is fucked up. First off, it's not together right. (I did not do that. I am responsible for about fifty apartments. I have, therefore, responsibility for about a hundred drain traps, a kitchen sink and a bathroom sink for each apartment. I am not a person confused about drain traps.) Secondly, the captive ring on the trap piece with the captive ring is not captive anymore. So, new trap piece needed. I go to hardware to get one. It's five dollars. I come back and put the drain trap together correctly. Tenant runs water in sink. It does not leak. Hooray. All done! Go me!
Tenant mentions at that juncture that the hot water, she no workie. Cold water OK, hot water no workie. Gotcha. Well, it is a fifty-year cold snap. The schools are closed today because of how cold it is. Might could be that the pipes is froze.
W. 4th is a small, one-room house with a crawl space underneath it. It is not a fun crawl space. It is a Belly On The Ground, Pick Self Up With Toes, Shove Self Forward, Wiggle Along crawl space. There is one section where you have about seven or eight inches between the dirt and the floor joist. It's hollowed out lower than the rest of the crawl space so that a non-large, somewhat-squishy person sort of fits through. That's the access to the Plumbing Area. (Good luck, soldier.)
So given that the cold water works in kitchen, bath sink, and toilet but not in bath tub and that the hot water no workie anywhere, the problem in the pipes is likely where we tapped into the bath cold to hook on the new hot water heater in the bedroom closet. (Old hot water heater was "baby" size under kitchen counter, sucked. Not big enough plus also stupid expensive because nonstandard size plus also impossible to get to for working on. When it died, we got a full-size one and put it in the bedroom closet. It's bigger, cheaper, and accessible, a win all around. It also fits nicely in about two linear feet of the entire-width-of-the-room closet. There is still plenty of closet left. When we put in the new water heater, we plumbed it in with SharkBite fittings and PEX. SharkBites are basically the tinkertoys of plumbing. They're push-to-fit, no tools required, so easy a child could do it. SharkBites are awesome. But PEX... PEX is magical bendy plastic pipes that are OK FOR FREEZING. They can freeze solid and still do not break. That's fucking amazing.) Anyway, I know about the plumbing underneath W. 4th not because I got an informational handout when we acquired W. 4th Street some twenty years ago but because I was the one under W. 4th doing the damn plumbing for the new water heater. A year ago, maybe two. I forget. Anyway. It was me all up under there and I know how the plumbing works because I have been in there to see it.
So, off to gather up a hairdryer (not for my use, for pipes) and fetch the really long extension cord out of the truck box. Extension cord is frozen stiff in coils. Ugh. Take flashlight, hairdryer under the house, commence to be hairdrying the pipes where I think they are frozen. (I am not a novice at playing Guess Where The Pipes Is Froze. This is my real job, after all.) About ten minutes in, the cold water in the bathtub starts to work again. Yay! It was not very frozen, which is good.
No joy on the hot water, though. I am yelling from the crawlspace up through the floor to the tenant, poor guy works nights and I feel like I'm ruining his sleep but, well, he needs thawed pipes, so he's giving me updates on the "not thawed yet" front. The PEX pipe going to the water heater creaks like ice when I flex it slightly. It is still froze.
More hairdryer. (You are not forbidden from running an electric space heater in the crawlspace to thaw out the pipes but you DAMN WELL BETTER SIT THERE WITH IT AND WATCH IT THE WHOLE TIME. Also you need to use a heavy-duty extension cord. Electric space heaters pull a lot of amps or whatever and they can heat up the extension cord so that it bursts into flames. FIRES CAN START THAT WAY. Same for propane torches. FIRE DANGER. It is bad enough to have frozen pipes, you do not ALSO need shit on fire when you've got no water (because frozen pipes) to put the fire out. Hairdryers are a safer option. They don't pull as much electric as space heaters and they probably won't overload your extension cords. Also they kind of force you to stay there and fucking hold the hairdryer. It's a safer option, is what I'm saying.
So, more hairdrying of the pex pipes. It takes about fifteen more minutes, maybe a half an hour, to get the hot water online again. It seemed like longer seeing as how I was on my belly (without coat on, coat makes me too thick to fit under the floor joist) and mostly motionless on the cold cold ground while holding a fucking hairdryer. I did have a toque on and also a sweatshirt, a longsleeved knit shirt, a t-shirt, and an underarmour long-sleeved shirt. And underarmour long johns and jeans and wool socks and gloves and a bandana over my nose and mouth b/c I can't be anywhere near insulation bits or I cough for, like, weeks.
But anyway eventually the hot water thawed (what was frozen was actually the cold water supply to the hot water tank, not that this matters) and nothing was broken and there was no water spraying anywhere.
VICTORY!! WE WILL FEAST LIKE GODS THIS NIGHT!
*ahem*
How cold is it supposed to get tonight?
-5F BUT NO MATTER FOR WE SHALL BE WARM IN FRONT OF THE FIRE AND FEASTING LIKE GODS!
And is there supposed to be any wind?
Quite a bit, yes. It'll make sitting in front of the fire EVEN better and I have leeks for potato-leek soup and... are you GOING somewhere with this? I'm trying to anticipate celebrating, here.
Don't you think that maybe these pipes which JUST FUCKING FROZE BECAUSE OF COLD, they might possibly FREEZE AGAIN TONIGHT? Since, y'know, it's going to be JUST AS COLD AS LAST NIGHT IF NOT COLDER?
Fuck you.
So, off I went to get some glass (insulation, I hates it) and a staple gun and some heavy sheet plastic. And I crawled back under the house and hung insulation over the gap between the floor joist and the dirt, curtaining off The Pipe Area from the rest of the crawlspace, so's to help keep the pipes warmer. I suspended the pipes off the dirt floor and closer to the building floor where they might stay warmer. I sheet-plastic'd the access panel opening so that the wind couldn't whistle directly in there and chill the pipes. And I noted that the access panel covering the opening had one busted hinge and was sitting slightly askew so I screwed that fucker down tight so that it wouldn't gap and let cold air into my thrice-damned crawlspace. (I will have to rebuild it a new and better access panel covering but I am going to do that when it's warm and sunny out and not when it's fucking zero.)
And then I told my tenant that it would be best if he'd let the kitchen tap drip-drip-drip tonight to keep it from freezing... a trickle slow enough that it splits into droplets before hitting the sink metal. Tomorrow it will be 16 and the pipes will not freeze. Sunday it will be 45. But tonight it will be -5 with high winds and a dripping tap is cheap insurance.
And that was my day at work. There will still be fire and feasting like gods (presumably the gods enjoy potato-leek soup) and such, but I need a shower first because I am fucking covered in glass to the point where I sparkle like fucking Edward Cullen in the sunshine. Ugh. Also, it itches.
It's not terrible. This morning early I put a new kitchen faucet in for the people in 9. They're nice folks, pay their rent timely, no trouble, quiet as can be. Kitchen faucet (modern) started leaking up top between the faucet stems and the spout somewhere. It's not an o-ring, it's a problem in the stupid plastic that we use now instead of brass. Fatigue, probably. Faucet's a couple of years old. It only leaks when you turn the water on, not when the water is off.
I had shutoffs and decent supply lines so all I had to do was take out the old one and put in a new one. Took about thirty minutes.
Because of the leaking, I asked them to leave the under sink cupboard doors open for a couple of days to see if the cabinet floor will dry out. (It should, now that there isn't water pouring on it all the time.) However, it's old and it's chipboard so... it might fall apart, in which case I will be back in there reflooring the sink cupboard. No biggie, I've done those before and they're not terribly hard. When I have to rebuild them, I do them in 3/4" plywood with 2x4 supports underneath, ripped to fit. It takes about two hours, start to painted-and-done.
But, it might not need that (depends really on how thoroughly wet the chipboard got) and if it DOES need that, it needs to be dry first anyway. So, no hurry. Tenant will let me know in a week or so if it needs to be done. (I foreshadowed this with her so she won't feel bad if the cabinet floor bites it.)
After that, I stopped in over at W. 4th to look at the guy's under-sink issue wherein he allowed as how the "drain thingie" was leaking. Okay, so this is a double-bowl sink with center drain and the plastic drain trap is fucked up. First off, it's not together right. (I did not do that. I am responsible for about fifty apartments. I have, therefore, responsibility for about a hundred drain traps, a kitchen sink and a bathroom sink for each apartment. I am not a person confused about drain traps.) Secondly, the captive ring on the trap piece with the captive ring is not captive anymore. So, new trap piece needed. I go to hardware to get one. It's five dollars. I come back and put the drain trap together correctly. Tenant runs water in sink. It does not leak. Hooray. All done! Go me!
Tenant mentions at that juncture that the hot water, she no workie. Cold water OK, hot water no workie. Gotcha. Well, it is a fifty-year cold snap. The schools are closed today because of how cold it is. Might could be that the pipes is froze.
W. 4th is a small, one-room house with a crawl space underneath it. It is not a fun crawl space. It is a Belly On The Ground, Pick Self Up With Toes, Shove Self Forward, Wiggle Along crawl space. There is one section where you have about seven or eight inches between the dirt and the floor joist. It's hollowed out lower than the rest of the crawl space so that a non-large, somewhat-squishy person sort of fits through. That's the access to the Plumbing Area. (Good luck, soldier.)
So given that the cold water works in kitchen, bath sink, and toilet but not in bath tub and that the hot water no workie anywhere, the problem in the pipes is likely where we tapped into the bath cold to hook on the new hot water heater in the bedroom closet. (Old hot water heater was "baby" size under kitchen counter, sucked. Not big enough plus also stupid expensive because nonstandard size plus also impossible to get to for working on. When it died, we got a full-size one and put it in the bedroom closet. It's bigger, cheaper, and accessible, a win all around. It also fits nicely in about two linear feet of the entire-width-of-the-room closet. There is still plenty of closet left. When we put in the new water heater, we plumbed it in with SharkBite fittings and PEX. SharkBites are basically the tinkertoys of plumbing. They're push-to-fit, no tools required, so easy a child could do it. SharkBites are awesome. But PEX... PEX is magical bendy plastic pipes that are OK FOR FREEZING. They can freeze solid and still do not break. That's fucking amazing.) Anyway, I know about the plumbing underneath W. 4th not because I got an informational handout when we acquired W. 4th Street some twenty years ago but because I was the one under W. 4th doing the damn plumbing for the new water heater. A year ago, maybe two. I forget. Anyway. It was me all up under there and I know how the plumbing works because I have been in there to see it.
So, off to gather up a hairdryer (not for my use, for pipes) and fetch the really long extension cord out of the truck box. Extension cord is frozen stiff in coils. Ugh. Take flashlight, hairdryer under the house, commence to be hairdrying the pipes where I think they are frozen. (I am not a novice at playing Guess Where The Pipes Is Froze. This is my real job, after all.) About ten minutes in, the cold water in the bathtub starts to work again. Yay! It was not very frozen, which is good.
No joy on the hot water, though. I am yelling from the crawlspace up through the floor to the tenant, poor guy works nights and I feel like I'm ruining his sleep but, well, he needs thawed pipes, so he's giving me updates on the "not thawed yet" front. The PEX pipe going to the water heater creaks like ice when I flex it slightly. It is still froze.
More hairdryer. (You are not forbidden from running an electric space heater in the crawlspace to thaw out the pipes but you DAMN WELL BETTER SIT THERE WITH IT AND WATCH IT THE WHOLE TIME. Also you need to use a heavy-duty extension cord. Electric space heaters pull a lot of amps or whatever and they can heat up the extension cord so that it bursts into flames. FIRES CAN START THAT WAY. Same for propane torches. FIRE DANGER. It is bad enough to have frozen pipes, you do not ALSO need shit on fire when you've got no water (because frozen pipes) to put the fire out. Hairdryers are a safer option. They don't pull as much electric as space heaters and they probably won't overload your extension cords. Also they kind of force you to stay there and fucking hold the hairdryer. It's a safer option, is what I'm saying.
So, more hairdrying of the pex pipes. It takes about fifteen more minutes, maybe a half an hour, to get the hot water online again. It seemed like longer seeing as how I was on my belly (without coat on, coat makes me too thick to fit under the floor joist) and mostly motionless on the cold cold ground while holding a fucking hairdryer. I did have a toque on and also a sweatshirt, a longsleeved knit shirt, a t-shirt, and an underarmour long-sleeved shirt. And underarmour long johns and jeans and wool socks and gloves and a bandana over my nose and mouth b/c I can't be anywhere near insulation bits or I cough for, like, weeks.
But anyway eventually the hot water thawed (what was frozen was actually the cold water supply to the hot water tank, not that this matters) and nothing was broken and there was no water spraying anywhere.
VICTORY!! WE WILL FEAST LIKE GODS THIS NIGHT!
*ahem*
How cold is it supposed to get tonight?
-5F BUT NO MATTER FOR WE SHALL BE WARM IN FRONT OF THE FIRE AND FEASTING LIKE GODS!
And is there supposed to be any wind?
Quite a bit, yes. It'll make sitting in front of the fire EVEN better and I have leeks for potato-leek soup and... are you GOING somewhere with this? I'm trying to anticipate celebrating, here.
Don't you think that maybe these pipes which JUST FUCKING FROZE BECAUSE OF COLD, they might possibly FREEZE AGAIN TONIGHT? Since, y'know, it's going to be JUST AS COLD AS LAST NIGHT IF NOT COLDER?
Fuck you.
So, off I went to get some glass (insulation, I hates it) and a staple gun and some heavy sheet plastic. And I crawled back under the house and hung insulation over the gap between the floor joist and the dirt, curtaining off The Pipe Area from the rest of the crawlspace, so's to help keep the pipes warmer. I suspended the pipes off the dirt floor and closer to the building floor where they might stay warmer. I sheet-plastic'd the access panel opening so that the wind couldn't whistle directly in there and chill the pipes. And I noted that the access panel covering the opening had one busted hinge and was sitting slightly askew so I screwed that fucker down tight so that it wouldn't gap and let cold air into my thrice-damned crawlspace. (I will have to rebuild it a new and better access panel covering but I am going to do that when it's warm and sunny out and not when it's fucking zero.)
And then I told my tenant that it would be best if he'd let the kitchen tap drip-drip-drip tonight to keep it from freezing... a trickle slow enough that it splits into droplets before hitting the sink metal. Tomorrow it will be 16 and the pipes will not freeze. Sunday it will be 45. But tonight it will be -5 with high winds and a dripping tap is cheap insurance.
And that was my day at work. There will still be fire and feasting like gods (presumably the gods enjoy potato-leek soup) and such, but I need a shower first because I am fucking covered in glass to the point where I sparkle like fucking Edward Cullen in the sunshine. Ugh. Also, it itches.