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How To Fit A Bath and Wash Basin, Tips, Advice

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A good knowledge of plumbing techniques and some understanding of building construction would be an advantage.

Be careful not to strain yourself whilst manoeuvring the appliances. Ensure that all metal pipes and fittings are cross-bonded with 6mm squared sheathed earthing wire. Protective goggles, gloves and ear defenders may be neededfor some operations.Changing your bath and washbasin gives you the ideal opportunity to re-style your whole bathroom.Plan your new installation thoroughly. If you only have one bathroom in the house, the work must be carried out efficiently to minimise the time that the amenities are unavailable. If you have any concerns, ask professionals to carry out the work. The methods described here refer to the separate removal and installation of each fitting. However, inpractice it is more convenient to strip out the room first, then carry out the new installation.Preparing the room

Clear the room of all storage units and fixtures, such as towel rails and blinds. If the bath has a shower screen, remove it. Take up carpeting, but leave sheet vinyl in place until all the fittings have been removed. If you plan to install new lighting or an extractor fan, make the alterations at this stage.The bath and basin are connected to the plumbing by water-supply pipes and wastepipes. These pipes must be disconnected before the fittings can be removed. First shut off the hot and cold supply.If your house has old lead pipes, make the most of this opportunity and ask a plumber to replace them with copper or plastic plumbing.Removing the old bath

Remove the bath panels to reveal the plumbing. Open the taps to drain them, then disconnect the supply pipes. Place ashallow bowl under the bath trap to catch the water, then disconnect the wastepipe.If the connectors cannot be unscrewed, saw through thepipes. Also, cut through the old bath overflow.If the bath has been sealed against the wall with flexible sealant, cut through this with a craft knife. Pull the bath out from the walls. If the bath has adjustable feet, it may help to lower these first.Unless a heavy cast-iron bath is worth salvaging, it is easier to move it by first breaking it up into manageable pieces. Cover the bath with an old blanket and strike it with a club hammer. Protective goggles, gloves and ear defenders should be worn during this operation.Once the bath has been removed, extract the old overflow pipe from the wall and repair the hole with mortar and plaster. Also, remove old wall tiles and prepare the walls for retiling.When applying new wall tiles, measure out and cut a groove in the plaster to inset the rim of the bath. This ensures a good waterproof joint.- Fitting the new bath

Before fixing a new bath or its panels, remove the protective covering and check thoroughly for damage or colour faults. Any claims made after the bath is fitted will not be accepted by the manufacturer.To add stiffness, most moulded plastic baths have a baseboard bonded underneath and a wooden frame bonded beneath the rim. A cradle kit is usually supplied for self assembly. Following the manufacturer’s instructions, fit the cradle legs to the frame and baseboard. Also fit the centre support leg, if supplied

Tips For Avoiding Water Damage

If you’ve ever experienced water damage, or if you know people who have, then you likely know that the aftermath of a flood or plumbing accident isn’t pretty – or cheap. As with most unpleasant things, taking preventative measures to avoid water damage in the first place makes sense. Not only are most of the water damage prevention steps easy to perform, they are generally inexpensive, if not free!

Before you begin, consider some of the common causes of water damage: drips, leaks, and clogs. With these root causes in mind, inspect your house and take action! This may involve a bit of work on your part such as cleaning out rain gutters and clogged drains, and it may require a few trips to the hardware store to buy new hoses, caulk, washers, and fittings. However, your efforts are well worth doing as a simple overflow could cost you hundreds of dollars in water damage mop up costs and repairs.

Dealing with Drips

While drips and leaks are similar, let’s address them separately. When inspecting your home for drips, use your sense of hearing as you inspect the following areas:

Look for signs of water and listen for the telltale sign of drips. Sometimes the repair is as simple as tightening a water valve while other repairs may require new fittings, hoses, or washers. Replace any hoses that show signs of deterioration such as brittle washing machine hoses.

Dealing with Leaks

Like drips, you’ll find leaks in bathrooms, kitchens, laundry rooms, and other areas where water lines run. However, leaks can be more difficult to detect. After all, a slow leak may not make a drip, drip, drip sound. In fact, the leak can be well hidden, slowly causing damage. Look for signs of water leaks by inspecting areas around windows and appliances for signs of moisture. You may notice damp carpet, water stains, or mildew. Basement leaks and seepage are also common, so be sure to check your basement, using your sense of smell as you search for signs of water damage.

Repairing leaks can be as simple as caulking a leaking window or replacing a leaking pipe. Ignoring leaks almost always leads to further damage.

Dealing with Clogs

Clogs are responsible for water damage due to overflows. After all, if a drain is clogged, water has nowhere to go. Typical areas to clean and maintain for preventing clogs include:

Regularly inspect drains and gutters and clean out the gunk as needed. Use a plumbing snake to clear clogged pipes and keep a toilet plunger handy for clogged toilets.

These are easy water damage prevention steps that you can take today to prevent costly water damage cleanup and repair costs tomorrow.

Acidic water is common in home water wells and can cause corrosion to piping, fixtures and appliances. Water that has a pH of less than 7.0 is considered to be acidic. The acid water pH can be neutralized to 7 or above by the use of an acid neutralizer tank, which allows calcium and magnesium carbonates to dissolve in the water. This eliminates the corrosive effect the water has on plumbing and fixtures.
For a pH of 6.0 to 6.9 a type of naturally occurring calcium carbonate media called Calcite is used to neutralize the pH. For water with a pH of less than 6.0, magnesium oxide is blended with Calcite to bring the pH to 7.0 or above. The Calcite or the blend of media is put in either an up-flow neutralizer tank or a down-flow neutralizer tank.
Acid neutralizer water systems are typically installed after the well pressure tank.
In down-flow neutralizer tanks the media flows from the top of the media inside a vertical filter tank down to the bottom of the tank, and up a distributor tube and out of the filter to the household piping. Down-flow neutralizer tanks also act as filters since sediment and other fine particles become trapped in the Calcite. This type of neutralizer is automatically or manually backwashed to keep the media clean.
In an upflow neutralizer the water flows down through the center distributor tube and enters the media bed at the bottom and flows up through the media before exiting the neutralizer and flowing out to the plumbing. Up-flow neutralizers do not get backwashed because the media is never compacted and no sediment is removed. Since the water is flowing up through the media the media is not compacted to theoretically it does not require backwashing.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both up-flow and down-flow neutralizers. The main advantage of the down-flow neutralizer is that it not only neutralizes the water, it also acts as a whole house sediment filter. Down-flow neutralizers are usually automatically backwashed, which cleans the Calcite media and prevents rust particles and other sediment from fouling or coating the media. Since additional Calcite or blended media must be added to most neutralizers once or twice a year, down-flow neutralizers are easier to backwash and put back in service than up-flow neutralizers which cannot be backwashed.
Up-flow neutralizers must use an internal top screen in to order to prevent the Calcite from entering the home plumbing system. Calcite has the appearance of white sand and can quickly damage valves and fixtures if the media enters the plumbing system. If the water contains iron, manganese or sulfides, these internal top screens can later become fouled and so are generally are not used for this reason. Instead of the internal top screen, a filter housing and cartridge filter are usually installed after the up-flow neutralizer tank to prevent any mineral from flowing into the plumbing system.
With down-flow neutralizers these upper screens or external filter housings are unnecessary since the Calcite is prevented from leaving the filter tank due to the bottom internal distributor screen. The bottom distributor does not get easily fouled due to the backwashing the down-flow neutralizer tank receives on a regular basis.
In filter tanks the media can flow around the media and create channels which allow the water to flow without properly contacting the media. This type of channeling is more of a problem with up-flow neutralizers and rarely happens with down-flow neutralizers due to the action of the backwash. For most residential applications down-flow neutralizers work better than up-flow neutralizers due to the filtration feature and the backwashing function.
A down-flow neutralizer can be backwashed on a regular basis to clean, re-classify and distribute the calcium media thoroughly. This backwashing allows the down-flow neutralizer to function properly and lower maintenance costs. The Calcite media dissolves better because it is cleaned and then compacted in the down-flow neutralizer tank.
Well water that is acidic can also sometimes be high in iron, manganese or hydrogen sulfide. If a greensand or other type of manganese media iron filter is used to treat the water for iron, the pH should be raised up to at least 6.8 to allow the iron filter media to work properly. A down-flow neutralizer is usually the best choice to put in front of an iron filter because the neutralizer acts as a pre-filter removing some oxidized iron prior to the iron filter. This lessens the load of iron that the greensand filter must treat. Iron, manganese and sulfides can coat the acid neutralizer media and render it unable to dissolve into the water and neutralize the pH.
There are some applications where up-flow Calcite neutralizers are more desirable than down-flow neutralizers. If the flow is more or less constant on a regular basis, such as when the neutralizer is used to fill a holding tank with neutralized water, the up-flow filter works fine. Since up-flow neutralizers have no automatic backwash control valve they are less expensive than down-flow neutralizers. If the water is of excellent quality with no sediment or iron and the flow rate is constant then the up-flow neutralizer costs less to use and uses no backwash water.