We Can Re-build it!

Remember my story about how we hired a plumber 5 years ago, affectionately known as "Placebo the Useless"? Well, after a visit to Lowes I found that there is a PVC flange made for inserting into metal pipe. It has a rubber seal and could be used as a replacement for my flange. Of course it costs 5 times more than a regular flange at around $15. Fortunately, Placebo used a flange that could have been used on either 3" or 4" pipe and I was smart enough to request 4" DWV pipe for our main stack. What does this mean? Well, after laying on the floor for 30 minutes while exercising my wrist with vigorous strokes while my fingers were tightly gripping the handle of a saw (really, some of you have minds in the gutter!), I was able to decapitate the head of my flange! Ouch!



Upon careful examination I realized that I could insert a 3" flange into the opening if I cut a 1" sleeve out of a piece of 3" PVC pipe. Since I had a spare 3" flange laying around, I saved myself $15.

I had some more 'Placebo" issues while laying in the plumbing for the first floor powder room. Mr. Useless had laid in several feet of 4" pipe for the toilet to connect to but it wouldn't pass through the opening in the brick wall because it was not installed at a steep enough angle. I had to cut it back about 2 feet and put in a 3" section to the toilet. The smaller diameter pipe cleared the wall and lined up perfectly for the toilet to sit in the center of the room. I can honestly say that from this point forward, I will no longer be haunted by Placebo's plumbing. I have corrected all of his errors. Any future corrections will be of errors made by me and I didn't have to pay for those ones!