On Sink Leaks and the Odd Habits of the Modern Canine

My best leak detector used to be Bishop, my golden Labrador who passed away four years ago. Every canine has its quirks, its oddities and its habits and Bishop was no different in this regard. He wasn’t much for biting at flies or starting epic, saga-like fights with cats but he had an odd habit of lapping up any puddles he could find which, as you might imagine, led to some rather disgusting situations. Most of the time, however, Bishop was just fine licking up spilled water, soda or juice, and was around for long enough for me to feel assured that this was not necessarily a dangerous occurrence.

Our new dog, Guinness, a French bulldog, has more normal habits (humping pillows, chasing random beams of light etc.) and it now falls to me to be on the lookout for bathroom leaks, and all other home-improvement warning signs, for that matter. Most of the time, the surefire sign is a spot on your ceiling (for second-floor bathrooms) or just random puddles of water. Almost all leaks in bathrooms come from corroded, cracked or improperly installed P-Traps, especially if the P-Trap is metal. This is the reason that many NYC plumbers are now installing or replacing broken P-Traps with PTV P-Traps, which hold out for impressive stretches of time.

The last major leak I had to fix at a customer’s home, however, was a speedy valve problem. Speedy valves can be found on the ends of your hot and cold water lines and, in my case, the valve on the hot water needed to be replaced; a bad soldering job can also be blamed for speedy valves leaking. As much as the state of these valves and your P-Trap are important when diagnosing a leak, one of the bigger questions, actually, is if the leak is constant or intermittent. If it’s constant the problem is likely with your water line, which will require more work. In fact, Bishop fed off a water line leak for nearly a weak in his salad days, before I knew what I was doing when it came to plumbing.

Bishop was also a fan of the leaks that came out from under our old pedestal sink, and spent many a day performing the gross task of lapping up any moisture around the bottom ring of the pedestal. Many think that this has something to do with the inner mechanisms of a pedestal sink. The truth is that pedestal sinks are no different from other sinks, in terms of pipes; there is nothing inside your pedestal and all the pipes can be found directly under the faucet fixture, not below. I highly suggest you find a leak-seeking dog, if you can, but if you cant, this should be helpful enough when it comes to diagnosing your major sink leaks. After all, as much as you might wish it, your pooch can’t wield a wrench. 

On Camping and Space Heaters

I come from a big camping family and, as such, I am a big fan of fire building and bonfires; I learned the former while in the cub scouts. Throughout my high school and college years, an annual weeklong camping trip in the summer was a staple for my mother and a great portion of my extended family, whether it was at Sacandaga, Schroon Lake, Brookwood Park or Eagle Point. Canoeing was my largest outdoor interest as a teen and most of the week in the woods was spent in the water, so much so that my parents eventually purchased a canoe from a neighbor.  And when the day on the water was done, there was always the family gathering around the campfire, where I not only had my first beer but also had my first kiss (a friend of my cousin).

The camping trips have, sadly, cut down in frequency over the last few years but my family has continued with the fires: my uncle has built his own fire pit and my mother spent most of a considerable bonus on installing a fireplace in her home. Both of these things are practical and enjoyable, if not exactly cost-effective, which is why most people have foregone fireplaces in favor of space heaters. I can’t argue too much: space heaters are a good, relatively cheap way to heat up rooms that don’t benefit as much from your heating system, though they can get a little pricey when you consider the electricity used on your electric bill.

My bigger concern as of late, having read quite a lot about recent recalls of popular space heaters produced by Wal-Mart and GE amongst other companies, is the issue of safety and home care. They are relatively simple mechanisms but, like air conditioners, they use a lot of power and therefore have the ability, especially in the higher-watt models, to trip your circuit breaker or blow a fuse. There are also hundreds of reports of them causing small fires, smoking, emitting a noxious odor etc. There is also the hard-to-ignore fact that they blow out easily and often need repair: switches malfunction, fans stop working, thermostat up and dies, and the central heating elements are known to fail with a consistency that is more than a little disconcerting.

Indeed, its much more fruitful to look into getting your heating system correctly pitched in those rooms where the heat doesn’t seem to be getting or, to really nip the problem in the bud, get your boiler looked at and replaced if needed. If you’re paying your heating bill already, you should be paying to have your entire house kept at a decent temperature. That being said, the cheapness of it is hard to argue with and plenty of space heaters are used daily that will never malfunction in any unsafe way. Indeed, part of my hesitation with space heaters may simply be a recent, rather bone-chilling pricing excursion on fireplace installation.