SUMMARY KEYWORDS
plumbing, disposer, water, drain, air, pipes, trap, gallons, sound, sewer, run, abt, house, google searches, unjam, andrew
00:03
Before you start your next do it yourself project, listen to this. You Got This! is on the air. You Got This! is hosted by ABT plumbing electric heat and air owner, Andrew Twidwell, and Rosalie Brown with a helping hand. Here are Andrew and Rosalie.
00:19
Hi, this is Andrew Twidwell, owner of ABT plumbing electric heat and air. Once again with the show, You Got This!, the show of DIY do’s and don’ts. And I’m zooming in with Rosalie Brown. She’s down in LA and I’m down in the Auburn office today. And it’s a lovely today. Oh my goodness. It’s gonna get warmer, isn’t it?
00:38
It is pretty hot today. We’re I am, we have a high of 91 today and there’s heat advisories. So we have a heatwave we’re stepping into, it’s going to be 97 by Friday. So that will be fairly unpleasant generally. Because I was wearing a sweatshirt I’ve been going for walks lately. I call them hikes because anytime I leave the house with shoes on, it’s a hike. So I’ve been going around the neighborhood and instead of like driving to the post office and walking and you know, I’m like okay, I’m getting old, I gotta keep things moving.
01:14
And walking in LA, it’s just so off.
01:18
It’s just what you do. And because price of gas is like seven bucks a gallon. So so I’ve been walking but the other day, like I think two or three days in a row. I have sweatshirt on so the sweatshirt is being cast aside for the next three.
01:33
Because we’re gonna shorts are being tested out. Yeah,
01:36
it’s time. So we’re in like pre summer right now, I don’t know what you guys are gonna what your high is, but we’re gonna predict it’s
01:42
going to be in the 80s. So it’s definitely going to be warm. And we are pre recording this on Wednesday. So we’re looking forward to some high temperatures in the next couple of days. So yeah, this will be airing on Friday. And yeah, it’ll be it’ll be there. It’ll be warm.
02:00
Right so now’s a good time like this second, although you can’t hear me in the real time to AC and test it.
02:07
Yeah, because you’re gonna I worked on the yard yesterday, because yesterday afternoon because it’s like it’s gonna be too hot to be working on the on the yard. You’re just mowing the lawn.
02:18
Once you get in the 80s all bets are off. Let’s go inside. Let’s
02:21
turn on a fan, right? Yeah, yeah,
02:23
I hear ya. I hear you. So what else is going on? injured? You had a nice weekend and sounds good. Yeah, it
02:30
was kind of a crazy weekend. So we had a thing with our daughter. We went down to visit her and played tourist and stayed at your first night we stayed in Fisherman’s Wharf, and kind of cruised around the Fisherman’s Wharf with our daughter. And their 23 year old daughter, she lives down there, but it was kind of fun to just go down and play tourist. And it got to see things that you know, like I grew up in San Francisco and see the see the things that we used to do is, you know, board youth, like kind of the crazy things we would do when we were bored and didn’t have much to do like sleeping in the lifeguard tower, aquatic park and I used to was in the sea Scout so it’s fun seeing boats out there and they used to sail out of aquatic Park and stuff. So it was cool. And then the neck then we moved to the financial district and state in the financial district. And I had a friend in from Sweden who I went to high school with he’s he’s American and Swedish and lives in Sweden right now and got to meet his fiancee and talk to him. Yeah. Find out about his kids and stuff. It was fun. And we had a nice dinner. Yeah.
03:42
And your birthday. Birthday.
03:46
Crazy. Yeah. But to top it off, yeah. And my mom went to law school on my birthday. And she’s fine. She was just you know, her sedentary lifestyle is taking the best of her. She’s not getting out and walking enough. Like we were talking just talking about off it was no, we’re just talking about it. Yeah, she’s not walking enough. She’s some of
04:06
us call it hiking though. You if you Yeah, it sounds more like, look at you.
04:12
He’s young. She’s 75. And she’s just you know, but she’s got diabetes, and she’s just not taking care of herself. So yeah, that’s tough. Yeah. And no matter what are her children say she doesn’t want to listen to us.
04:26
Because I’m at that age where no one can tell me nothing. But then I in turn, can’t tell my children anything because they’re adults. So it’s like, no, it’s that weird thing where like, everyone just do what you think is best. I’m done. My hands are clean. Yeah, like I’ve been saying this
04:41
for years. This is the conversation my wife and I have because she still wants to parent our children and tell them what to do. And I’m like, they’re adults. Now. We’re done. Our job is done. We can support them emotionally and financially and that’s, you know, that’s about it. We can’t tell them what to do.
04:57
You know, it’s it’s funny too, because the older they get the more Like you realize, like, they don’t need you at all like my, so I am probably going to be heading up north to Pacific Northwest at the end of July it looks like and so I, you know, text my daughter who lives there. And I’m like, hey, looks like you know, I don’t know the exact details yet, but I’m gonna be in your neighborhood. And she’s like, Oh, that’d be so fun to see you. And here’s all the reasons I might not be into this, like, oh, like, Okay, I’m like, Well, I’m still gonna come because like, it wasn’t. My trip was actually about something else. But I was like, wow, like, you know, maybe
05:34
change your plans a little bit. I’m like it to be in your neighborhood. Yeah. to each other in six months. Yeah. Like, okay, I
05:42
forget, like, you’re grown up and you have a life and you’re planning your summer. I’m like, wow, that’s grown up. She’s planning for summer already. I’m like, Oh,
05:51
how’s a calendar?
05:53
didn’t dawn on me like, Oh, I’m not the most important in your life anymore. You’re 30 and me. How is this possible? rough week, dude, I’ve knocked up the pedestals this week’s sticks. Man 30. She’s gonna be 30 at the end of this month. Yeah.
06:14
Holy moly. High School.
06:18
I remember I remember. I remember Paul driving down the street and down the highway and seeing her she just had an episode at home and was so mad. And she like stormed off and I didn’t know where she was. And Paul calls me and he’s like, Hey, I think I saw your daughter walking. 14.
06:36
Like, yeah, she’s
06:37
she stormed out. She’s mad at me. So that had to be when she’s 15 years old. So
06:44
14? Yeah, remember that?
06:47
I was just like, Oh, man. So I got Paul from abt Kalami to tell me hey, I saw your kid on the side of the road. I
06:52
mean, it’s just like, wow, pinnacle of my my mothering experience right there. Yeah.
06:58
She had shoes on that, right. Yeah. My daughter walked out without shoes. How dramatic can we get?
07:07
You shouldn’t have asked because my mind didn’t get much better, although she’s calmer now. But yeah, the walking on highway 49 was a real statement. I’ll never forget. Anywho Oh, my goodness. Okay. Go through
07:23
life and birthdays. Yeah, that’s crazy. And parents. So yeah. So why are we why are we here? We’re here to talk about DIY do’s and don’ts. And you gave me this great list. Tell us a little bit about this list. Because I think it’s pretty cool that you kind of came Okay.
07:37
Well, there’s, there’s a couple of things I have to say. First off, you know, being the producer, I’m just gonna say no offense to my friends at Cancio of the show. It does get we’re like, Okay, what’s relevant? You know, like we were at, you know, abt is a full service company. So where do we focus on what’s going on in the world? So what happened was, I was looking for what’s relevant. What are people asking about plumbing? Like, what? So I found this list that’s like, tells you how many Google searches per month
08:05
literally how many searches?
08:07
And I was like, Whoa, so like, this tells you what people that the polls, right. But then the funny thing is that I had an episode in my own, you know, home and I’m like, Well, this kind of fits, I’m going to be able to ask Andrew about this. So I’m gonna go to that question first, and then we can jump into the list is that if that’s okay with you? Well, it’s actually on the list. Okay, well, then we’ll start with that one. Um, I’m going to be honest with you, I am clean, run the dishwasher. I take care of business. My house is not in any way gross. But I have the most disgusting odor that comes up from my kitchen drain, and it happens frequently. And once it starts, it’s like it just oh my gosh. So what I’ve tried to do is I’ve done the whole vinegar with baking soda. I’ve done you know, pour down some I’ve, I’ve, I’ve bought, here’s my DIY try to fix. I put some I didn’t put them down the drain. But I peeled some tangerines, and I put the the drains out. I mean, I’ve done a bunch of things, right? What way knows is it’s constantly coming back. Like I can clear it off for a minute, but it comes back. And so my thought was, If I lived in your service area, I know what I do. I get on the horn and be like, hey, I want you to bring over some of the enzyme stuff, man, because that’s what I need, but I’m not in your service area. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what can you do if your kitchen sink stinks.
09:35
Yeah, and my first question to you was, Do you have a disposer? And that the reason why I asked if if there’s a disposer is because, you know, in a normal drain, you just have a tail piece, a piece of pipe that goes from the P trap to the drain. So it’s generally you know, three to 12 inches long, but it’s a vertical pipe. So not a lot of stuff gets accumulates there. But in the disposer you’ve got basically The coffee can with a drain on the side of it. And stuff sits in there like material, bits of food and fats and all the other nasties. And it’s a nice warm, wet environment. So things tend to grow in there. And we’ll off gas. But I, as you’re saying this I had one solution when we’re talking off air, and then all of a sudden, I’m sorry, think about another thing. The first question I always ask, fine, I forgot to ask you this is does it smell like sewage? Or does it smell like rotting food,
10:30
it doesn’t smell like sewage. It smells like writing like just Vonk damp, gross, something but it does not sound like sewage. So for that, don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful. Grateful. Yeah, but no, because it was smells like
10:42
sewage, I would suspect there’s something wrong with the P trap. So the P traps that little U shaped pipe underneath every fixture in the house. What that does is it holds water. And by holding water, it keeps the it keeps an airtight seal between your house and the city sewer. When that P trap goes dry, or if it’s installed incorrectly and the water gets siphoned out of the P trap, you can literally have an open sewer, a non airtight connection to the sewer, and you’ll get sewer gas smells. But the one of the worst things you can get are little flies that live in their sewers, and they will land on somebody else’s stuff. And then up in your house and potentially them under your food and you can get sick. So these P traps. I talked to my guys all about me one of the one of the things that we do as plumbers is we help protect the health and safety of our nation. Because we know these things, we’re keeping those that separate from the household. And you know, millions of people die a year because of these flies that will land up people’s food and contaminate their food and get dysentery and all these other bad.
11:53
So I’m I’m grateful for the PSA, but I kid you not like having the worst gagging.
11:58
Nasty. That’s That’s my job. My life is poop. Lord, so as long as the P. As long as the P trap is there, and it’s got water in it, it’s probably just something accumulating inside the disposer. And I don’t mean like I know, you know, you’re not a slob by any means your house is tight, and you take care of things, you run water into disposer, and you run the disposer. But you still gonna get some things you’re gonna attach to the walls in there. And yeah, if it’s an older disposer, some of them are made out of cast iron, and they rust. And they got all these nice little nooks and crannies and the rest and stuff accumulates. So yeah, by putting you know, any kind of citrus thing that’ll help hide it, and maybe the acid will get rid of some of the funk for a little while. But another thing you can do is what we sell is total Sea, which is an enzyme and bacteria plus a citrus base cleaner, all in one. And you put that down periodically, you know, like on a monthly basis. And we’ll take care of that folk. But ironically, what we’re talking about here, too, is came up in my life recently because my wife’s aunt, her husband had to be hospitalized because of dementia, and she wasn’t able to take care of many more. And she was getting the sewer smell in her house. And she’s like, what is it and I said, When was the last time that somebody used his bathroom, his shower. And she’s like, it’s been two months. And I’m like, it’s probably the P trap has dried out and literally that P trap that thing that holds the water, the water and it will dry out. So you need to periodically put water in if it’s in a guest bath that you don’t use very often. And we get that call all the time. I’ve got sewer gas Mills, put some water in the drain, try that first. If If the problem persists, then give us a call nine times out of 10 that takes care of the problem. And it is because that that water dries in the P trap loses that airtight gas seal. And now all of a sudden you have a connection to the sewer. And so yeah, so those are two things, either using some enzymes and or some citrus based stuff and keeping water in the P trap and that’ll solve those problems.
14:11
Gotcha. Okay, well I’m definitely going in for the enzymes because yeah, gonna take care of that. It’s just gonna just keeps reoccurring. I know it’s yeah, it’s it’s a repeat offenders what’s going on it? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let me ask you so one of the questions was, and this came up the Google search, you know, they say it’s a search number on this one is probably about 500 searches a month, which isn’t the highest number I’ve ever seen. But but so the question was, why are my pipes knocking when the toilet is flushed? And that was a question I wouldn’t think would be that popular, but apparently it is. It
14:47
is. Yeah. And I like highly describe the answer to this. So there’s a couple different reasons why pipes will knock and run at all and make noise or creek. So our first thing is always you know, is it, if it’s a toilet, we know it’s not hot water. But if it is hot water when you run like a tub or something like that, and you get like this popping sound, it’s just thermal expansion and contraction in the pipes. Unfortunately, whoever installed the plumbing, used hard straps and strap that securely to the wall, as opposed to using a plastic or isolating type of strap that allows for expansion and contraction, that’s one thing we use is we use a plastic strap which isolates the sound, so you don’t get that popping noise. But if it is cold water, like a toilet, it could be a couple things. It could be the valve itself. So our new valves tend to have a very quick positive shut off. So it’s just like a slam shut. And you can have knocking throughout the system. And that’s usually we don’t have it so much. If you’ve got a well, because you have this expansion tank or not expansion, excuse me, you have a well tank that has basically air bladder and absorb that kind of shock. But if you have it in the plumbing system, you need some kind of shock absorber somewhere in the system, and we install those, you can also get them online. Just generally speaking, what we’ll see this mostly is with solenoid valves, so a dishwasher or washing machine. And there’s a product that Sue chief makes that you can literally just screw on the end of your where your water washing machine hooks up to the garden hose. And you hook those up and it takes care of the water hammer and should take care of most of the water hammer in the whole house because it’s a pneumatic system. So it’s going to go wherever it can find some resistance, or lack or lack of resistance with some mechanic. It’s a shock absorber anyway, Sue chief makes a great product. And pretty cheap.
16:49
Sounds like an easy fix.
16:51
The other thing it could be is I’ve seen where pressure reducing valves on a system will cause a chattering sound. It only happens when you use a certain fixture. But I’ve also had noises where you kind of have a humming noise. And that’s typically water going over a loose washer. And it’s kind of like wind going over a read on a wind instrument like saxophone This is starts to vibrate, because you’ve got water rushing over the soft material and it starts to vibrate and we’ll make this kind of noise that which cases you know, it needs to be rebuilt, developed needs to be rebuilt. But those will take care most of those problems. Those weird noisy problems coming from from your house. Why are my pipes knocking when the toilet flushes?
17:37
Okay, awesome. Wow, I learned something today. Yay. Okay. So now let’s go to another one Google searches per month on this Where’s said to be 850. And I’m happy to say this is not a problem I have. But why do I have cloudy tap water?
17:53
Yeah, and this and nine times out of 10, which is air, air, but I’ve seen it, it’s just for bubbles, somehow, or got into the system somewhere or the air raid or on your faucet is putting a bunch of air into it. If you just take that water and clear glass and let it sit on the table. If it clears out within within five minutes, you know it’s just there. If it’s persists, then it could be total Salt, salt, total dissolved solids TDs. If you like on a well, we don’t really have that issue for tap water in our area when it’s an ID or municipal water. But we will see it on wells. And that’s just it could be calcium, it could be sediment, it could be seen it could be grit, and all those things, their aesthetic. They’re easily taken out with a filter. We put filters in for this sort of things on a well all the time. And they’ll solve the problem. But if it’s just air, just let it sit on a table. And if it if the aerosols rise to the top and disappear. Don’t worry about it’s just there.
18:57
Okay. The test? Glad mine I don’t have gray water. Um, okay, so here’s one that I do believe gets a lot of searches because this would make sense to me. Google searches for over 1700 a month. So my guards spike garbage disposal. Stop working. What do I do? That seems like a common problem.
19:18
Yeah. So I get those calls quite a bit from friends. Yeah, my disposer stopped working. What do I do? My first question is humming gear, I make noise. If you’ve got a humming noise, it’s jammed. If you’ve got no noise, it’s jammed and it’s tripped the breaker. It’s got an internal circuit breaker so it doesn’t fry that motor. Because if you keep putting power to that motor, and it’s not spinning, it’s gonna get hot and it’s just going to melt. So what is jammed mean will dispose or all it is is there’s this basically a turntable, this round disc inside of there that has these. They call them teeth, but they’re really just metal bars that kind of flop around and they spin really Fast and grind stuff up on the walls, the disposer if a piece of metal gets in there, it’s going to jam that thing up. So it’s simply Why can’t see it’s simply simple for me. But simply a jam, just jam disposer the way to unjam it is that little allen wrench that you’ve probably seen at the bottom of your junk drawer that says ISC on is all you really need is there’s a Allen Allen bolt in the very center of the bottom of the disposer. You stick the Allen wrench up in there, and you swirl it around until it spins go back and forth until you unjam it and then take a flashlight. And apparently almost pliers after you’ve unplugged it. Look inside and see what kind of metal thing it’s usually like a bottle cap or all caps are the main one paperclip sometimes, but it’s usually some metal piece that got down there. And that’s also problem.
20:58
One, if you’ve ever put together furniture from any store, you have about 12 of those little wrenches probably in your junk drawer.
21:04
I know. I’ve got like so many. That’d be the right size. That’s true. But
21:09
if you’ve got a universal size, I’ve used my universal to clear drains. Clear. Mm a bunch. But yeah, that should take care of it. It’s yeah. Hex, hex key. Yeah. Okay, so you gotta, if it’s not making noise, you got to reset that. And it’s just a little button, I don’t even have to look, I know where they are. They’re like, on the near the end of the side, these kind of feel around or take a flashlight, climb on a thread and just push it
21:36
and make sure you stay very loose, because that’s one of the things that will be get climbing in small spaces. I can’t work. That’s usually that’s easy. That’s the hardest part. Okay, so this question doesn’t surprise me either, because I’ve had perfect strangers asked me this. And I’m like, What are you talking about? So Google searches about 1700 a month, where is my main water shut off valve?
22:03
Yeah, that’s a good thing to know.
22:08
It is, and it’s gonna be different for everybody.
22:10
It is literally going to be different for everybody. Generally speaking, if you’re on a well go out your wheelhouse, you should ask the vowels out there, turn them all off. If you don’t have a marked, or turn them off, until you figure out which one is your house, and then mark it like I’ve got three of our four valves in my wheelhouse. And once for the house once for irrigation ones for the pressure tank, ones for the filtration system. So yeah, figure out which one does it and run a faucet have your significant other inside. And with a cell phone until you get it once the water shuts off, you know what it is? Know where that is. Because when an emergency happens, we’ve talked about this before we ever dropped a gallon of milk on the floor, what a big puddle that can make. If you’ve got a if you’ve got a breach in the plumbing system, if you got an open waterline, it can produce anywhere, it can produce in excess of 10 gallons per minute out of that thing. So multiply that by 10. If it takes you three minutes to get to the warehouse and turn it off, you’re talking about 30 gallons. So you know and if it takes you longer to figure if it’s taking you 15 minutes, you’re talking 1000s of gallons of water potentially. So really know where this is. You want to know where your water shutoff is, I would say So Mike, and let your significant other know where it is as well. Okay, you got time for actually no, we don’t have time for any more. Oh, wow. Okay, that we’ve only got like 40 seconds, but I will. There was one here, how do I flush my water heater. And they do describe how to do it. We’ve had a video on that on our website, I did one flushing my own water heater at my house. So it’s relatively easy and something that you should do periodically, especially if you’re in a well, they suggest turning the water off. I always say don’t turn the water off. Just just hook up those to the hose on the drain on the bottle of water heater and let it run for 10 or 15 minutes, turn it off, and you’re good to go. So don’t even don’t even mess with the plumbing. Just hook up the hose and let it run for a little bit. But making sure that you’re putting that water somewhere that you’re not going to damage plants. And on that note, we’re not
24:14
okay, so if you need any plumbing, electric heat or air, you can call abt at 530-230-9092 Find us on Facebook, find us on the internet easiest abc.com And it looks like that’s it for this week. That’s all we got. Yeah.
24:29
Thanks for listening, and we’ll catch you guys next week. Bye.
24:32
Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Rose Lee. Now let’s get that project started. You got this. We’ll be back next Friday morning at nine o’clock on Cancio Newstalk 830