you, sir, get a thumbs up

Is there anything I should do if it's zero degrees outside? My neighbor poured antifreeze in his sump pump lol?? I believe his is outside. Mine is basement. Question is general though, not sump pump specific.

Get some heat and or flow on any pipes that run along an outside wall. Like open the cabinet doors below the kitchen sink and let it trickle, perhaps. Other than that, not really, afaik.

If you can, turn off water to your outside spigots and drain them. A lot of them are frost free now, and drain themselves, but if you're not sure no reason not to do it. And if anything does freeze on you, just check around for leaks when things thaw.

Yeah, good point. Especially if you have a sprinkler system and haven't already drained it for the winter. Prob too late for that one, though.

This is all great advice. I have a garden hose inside my garage. The piping is all on the warm side (inside of the insulation) and the garage is heated (we usually keep it at 5-10 Celsius).

The wife and I were shovelling the other day, it was pretty cold out, as were walking in I press the button to close the garage door. I guess something was blocking the sensor so it went half down and then came back open.

I didn’t notice until about 3 hours later. Closed the door, next morning we found that the pipe had frozen and burst. Luckily it was all contained in the garage/driveway.

Always a good idea to check your sump pump and make sure it isn't continually running. If it is, it is most likely because your lines are frozen outside and blocking any water from being pumped out and this will burn up your pump motor. In the winter, just to be safe, I have a quick disconnect right outside the house and I switch it to a short hose that just pumps it a few feet from the house and has a much more severe slope so it won't freeze. Switch it back in the spring.

You only mentioned cold, but if it snows or gets windy when there is already snow on the ground you should periodically check your furnace exhaust to make sure it is not blocked. Older houses for sure should be checked. If it is blocked you could have carbon monoxide problems that could be extremely bad news. Your furnace exhaust vent could also freeze up if there is condensation issues with it so it is a good idea to check it anyway periodically in the winter to make sure.

Thanks, appreciate it

My bathtub faucet (the part the water comes out to fill the tub) will pull away from the wall if pulled. It's like the copper pipe isn't secured inside the wall where the 90° elbow is. This means it can pull out if pulled on, leaving a gap water can get in.

Whats a good way to sexure this? I saw a video on the U tubes where a guy pulles the faucet and sprayes a whole can of expanding foam in there to sexure it. For some reason this doesnt sound like a good idea to me, but I dont really know anything. So maybe it is?

"Sexure" once is a typo. Twice, it's a hell of a weird thing to do to your faucet.

But, that spray foam stuff is pretty darn sturdy. Seems like it'd work.

How much play is in spout? Like an 1/8" or closer to 1/4"? You might be able to turn it one more time around and that will tighten it more towards the wall but you can split the threads in the elbow and you would be screwed. Hard to say without being there.

The problem with the foam is most will probably just fall down inside the wall and not do what you want it to do.

Never tried this but maybe use Liquid Nail or PL Premium type glue bewtween the tiled wall and the nipple the spout is attached to.

lol thought this too. what kinda convos are you having that it auto corrects to this?

instead of the spray maybe try the above with some loctite in case it does get threaded?

I dunno, if you spray foam in it, its going to be hell to fix it again if it breaks or leaks.

Which may have happened already but its behind the wall and so small you couldn't see if it was.

Maybe silicone around the spout so that it doesn't move?

A tub spout can be either compression or threaded on. Look beneath it and see if there is a hole near the wall where the head of an alien screw would be located. You might be able to unscrew it and slide it further back. You could silicone it to the wall if you can let it set up for one day. When roughing in tub valves I always use a drop ear fitting and screw this to wood so the spout is solid. If your tub is not on an outside wall you can open up behind it and strap the pipe.

As for cold weather and pipes. Make sure you remove hoses from frost free hose bibbs. Frost free bibbs won't drain down with a hose attached and could freeze and split. Pipes can freeze when cold air blows across them. You can buy pipe insulation at home centers.

Ground is super saturated right now, with snowmelt and epic rain. Whole neighborhood is basically a marsh at the moment.

In the basement, there is a concrete pad for an old oil burning furnace. The pad now stands empty. It has a few holes in it that I had presumed were bolt holes, but now I think they were drains in case of an oil leak (truly environmentally friendly there), as water is now coming up from them. Fortunately, the basement is pretty well graded for drainage and the water is making a stream down to the sump pump and getting pumped back out, so no damage so far. I was able to get the salamander back outside before the cats found it, so winning.

I presume that once things dry out, I can just mix up some cement and plug those holes, yes?

They still could have been bolt holes. Lots of times when guys are drilling the holes for bolts they just keep drilling til they go through the slab.

Unless they were really really big bolts I think two part epoxy would be easier, and seal the holes better.

ETA:

Actually, a tube of Sikaflex is probably the easiest, most waterproof, solution. Just stick the tip in and pump it full.

(That's what she said)

Three holes, about child bowling ball sized.

So, I have a nasty rotten-egg type smell that I've traced down to the water heater. Can smell it where it vents up out of the water heater into the pipe that exhausts out of the house, and it can be smelled outside strongly as well.

Owned this place about a year, water heater is just 5 years old. Called a tech out since this is out of my wheelhouse, he says everything is fine. I find that a little hard to believe since I've never smelled this before, but don't know enough to call BS on him or tell him what else to look at.

Poured a bunch of hot water into the laundry room sink, it's odorless. So I don't think it's the anode going bad from what I've read. There's a smoke/CO2 detector in the laundry room that has not tripped, I tested it yesterday out of paranoia.

Any idea what to look for / what to do next?

The rotten egg smell is from your gas line, try any tighten the black pipe fittings and the gas supply hose

Maybe it's just me, but if I smelled gas by my water heater I'd be calling a plumber.

Yeah, that's what I had done, he came out and said it was fine.

Turned out to be the propane tank being low, and it emits this odor to make the homeowner aware it's almost out. 100 gallon tank was down to 2 gallons of propane left.

First house I've had run on propane. Lesson learned.

way back in the day i think we had to ask to have oil delivered, but the last house i lived in, they just showed up with gas when it was needed, and left a bill on the door. never had to check anything

and wouldnt the tank be outside?

The tanks are outside, and our service was on a "we'll call you" schedule as opposed to a "gas company checks 2x a year schedule". Must have forgotten about that.