That’s good to know. I would hope a metal anchor to reshape when temp causes expansion. It’s a shame to hear it’s the brick that’s forced to expand. In my case it’s a solid metal rod, so it sounds like the metal is guaranteed to split the brick in a temp change.
It sounds like I have to pull out the shank, bore the hole to 10mm, and either use chemical anchor or fasten it using a sheet metal w/2 nuts.
Is this a friction anchor?
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/f504ebc8-a015-4b7a-907d-85eabdfc260a.webp
I just learned these exist from the other thread. Though I doubt it would have helped in my case. At this point I’ll just have to check it over the seasons and see if temp changes have caused any issues.
I was mainly asking for future reference whether I should repeat what I did or not. I suppose it’s rare that a smooth rod needs to be installed on brick.
EDIT: looks like the link died due to the comment containing that image being deleted. Sorry about that.
Both… functional art.
The original problem is that there was a water shut-off valve for the whole floor in the shower. Very ugly to have a valve in the corner on the floor and somewhat in the path of the water if someone were to point the showerhead slightly outside the pan. The valve handle was rusting. It was embedded in a solid block of concrete with the handle sticking out. The valve started to fail (did not completely shut off the water). And it was the kind of valve where the whole valve needed to be replaced. Terrible work by the builders. I had to demolish the concrete to reach the valve.
So I replaced the valve with the kind of valve that has a replaceable cartridge. But I also refused to embed it in concrete again. I will build a removable sealed box around it. But the box could not be both waterproof and also easily removable on the fly whenever the valve needs to be accessed. So I put a hole in the wall (shower to bedroom). Then I attached a 90° gearbox drill accessory and a shaft to that goes through the wall. On the bedroom side, I could have just put a handle. But I found a wood helm to a ship (miniaturized). I thought that would be the perfect steampunkish valve handle. But it did not clear the wall (in a corner). So i got carried away and put a bicycle sprocket on the shaft, and mounted the helm to another sprocket, which i attached to the wall higher up. And wrapped a chain between them.
I could not pull it out with my hands after tapping it in. But to be clear, there’s only a sheer force to deal with, and it’s light.
I cut a bicycle axle bolt in half, and embedded it in the brick so there is a bicycle sprocket on the wall. Then a chain wraps another sprocket, which turns a shaft that goes all the way though the wall to the other side, where it connects to a right-angle gearbox, which attaches to a water valve. It’s lightweight overall… just the weight of a sprocket, chain, and a small decorative wood thing out of wood to serve as a handle.
This might come a bit too late but why didn’t you just get threaded rod and use one of these instead?
I did not know anchors like that existed for machine bolts. That’s good to know! However, it would not have helped in this situation. The bicycle axle has non-standard threading (~9mm bolt with a thread pitch that’s 2 steps away from the norm). Since it had a special nut that interfaced to ball bearings, I could not bring in a standard bolt or threaded rod. And the threaded portion of the axle was short enough that no threads could have gone into the wall. I could have added threads to the bare portion, but my die set skips the ø=9mm size.
I was asking more for future reference – whether or not I should ever repeat this. And I think you answered that. Even if I get lucky in the future on getting a perfect fit at that moment, temp changes could blow it. I guess I’ll assume anchors (chemical and mechanical) are designed to handle the temp changes.
Old red brick, which is solid. It’s light duty, and unusual. I cut a bicycle axle bolt in half, and embedded it in the brick so there is a bicycle sprocket on the wall. Then a chain runs to another sprocket, which turns a shaft that goes all the way though the wall to the other side, where it connects to a right-angle gearbox, which attaches to a water valve. But it’s lightweight overall… just the weight of a sprocket, chain, and a small decorative wood thing out of wood to serve as a handle. I suppose you’re sorry you asked at this point.
product 1:
product 2:
product 3:
Going from memory I rotated between the products and I think I poured in about ⅓ of the clog clearing doses on the first two every few days… because I was a cheap bastard and just wanted to constantly have the enzymes in there. But yeah, probably a mistake. I think I tried a 300ml dose of product 2 just once. But I probably should have tried a full dose more often.
Right, but these were specifically for cleaning drains. One of them was kitchen drain specific, and the other two were for drains in general. But indeed it’s possible that the clog was not even organic… perhaps calcium deposits from hard water.
I wonder if pouring a whole bottle of enzymes would have worked. When pouring just 50—100ml or so, it would spread out on the bottom of the pipe and only touch the bottom part of the clog. But if a whole liter rushes through at once then it would cover the whole clog. But it’d be a pricey test.
I documented a drain horror story here, the fiasco of which involved 3 different enzyme-based drain cleaners. They seem to have a dual purpose: use a small amount every 1 or 2 weeks as a maintenance task, or pour down a large amount to work on a clog. I had a very slow drain and the enzymes made no apparent difference. But I know in general enzyme cleaners are quite good. It’s amazing how well they work on the oven. I had a general purpose enzyme based cleaner that worked great for things like food spills that dried on a wall.
I guess proteins is a little over my head. I just saw on the label a bunch of pac-mans gobbling up stuff. I understood that… and hoped I could multiply them. So IIUC, I just have to keep buying them and not reuse them much? Do they degrade in the original bottle just the same as if they’re in dirty water?
Thanks for the suggestion but in my case there is nothing to nail to. A shingle must be attached to thick (~2mm) rubber that’s just formed to be vertical. Perhaps I need to rivet the two rubber pieces together. Or I might try construction glue again but also get a couple metal plates and screws to clamp them together as a permanent clamp.
emphasis mine:
Anti-nuclear is like anti-GMO and anti-vax: pure ignorance, and fear of that which they don’t understand.
First of all anti- #GMO stances are often derived from anti-Bayer-Monsanto stances. There is no transparency about whether Monsanto is in the supply chain of any given thing you buy, so boycotting GMO is as accurate as ethical consumers can get to boycotting Monsanto. It would either require pure ignorance or distaste for humanity to support that company with its pernicious history and intent to eventually take control over the world’s food supply.
Then there’s the anti-GMO-tech camp (which is what you had in mind). You have people who are anti-all-GMO and those who are anti-risky-GMO. It’s pure technological ignorance to regard all GMO equally safe or equally unsafe. GMO is an umbrella of many techniques. Some of those techniques are as low risk as cross-breeding in ways that can happens in nature. Other invasive techniques are extremely risky & experimental. You’re wiser if you separate the different GMO techniques and accept the low risk ones while condemning the foolishly risky approaches at the hands of a profit-driven corporation taking every shortcut they can get away with.
So in short:
I really cannot stand that phrase because it’s commonly used as poor rationale for not favoring a superior approach. Both sides of the debate are pushing for what they consider optimum, not “perfection”.
In the case at hand, I’m on the pro-nuclear side of this. But I would hope I could make a better argument than to claim my opponent is advocating an “impossible perfection”.
So I have to ask why was this post which asked what is a decent client for Debian removed (per rule #3):
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/1681507
while at the same time this “What’s the best Android/iPhone app for Lemmy?” is not removed? Is it because the moderator created this thread & thus /above the law/, in effect?
What’s the reasoning behind that ban?
The drain infrastructure in most US cities is relatively modern. The city drain pipes are big & thus able to handle a big amount of food waste coming from residents. I think I heard some minority of US cities also ban garbage disposals because for whatever reason their pipework can’t handle the load.
Old cities have small pipes that could not sustain the onslaught of thick food waste, as I understand it. In my city, rats outnumber humans by 2 to 1 and I think they thrive in the sewer. So I’m not sure if it’s also an effort to not feed rats. In any case, the city’s preferred way of dealing with waste food is to put it in the trash.
Recently they required food waste to be separated into a different color bag than the others. So they collect the food waste together and compost it. In the end, this is probably the most forward-thinking approach despite the sewer system being quite behind.
I can’t quite work out if you’re making a prediction of a clog returning, or if you’ve not realized that there is no longer a clog.
For weeks I have been fighting clog. But the clog is finally gone and the drain is now faster than I have ever seen. The drain actually keeps pace with the faucet on full blast. In the past, even in the best of times, I think the fastest it drained was 1 liter in 20 seconds. Now 1 liter drains in 6 seconds.
You’re already hundreds of dollars into gadgets and chemicals. Stop it. Cut your losses and call a professional next time.
Pros give different results in different areas. I called a plumber for a leak once. I was out of town, but a simple leak was dripping and forming a puddle on the floor. The leak was in exposed PEX pipe visibly strapped to the wall (yes that room is quite ugly). The plumber spent little time, failed to find the leak, blamed something that was fine, and charged €200. We called him back and he made the outrageous claim that the puddle was due to “condensation”. Left and gave no refund. I would love to have a reliable & trustworthy plumber. But since I don’t have that I have to become the plumber.
My costs in the drain fight were ~¾ of €200 (less than the incompetent plumber’s charge for simply showing up). Every time I redo the pipes I’m appalled by the work of past plumbers. So I think I’m just not in a good place to hire plumbers. There is no quality control of any kind in my area. No Better Business Bureau of sorts to record complaints. So the infrastructure is not setup for bad plumbers to fail.
Ok, so as you noted at the end, sulfuric acid was a bad idea for the pipes.
Not exactly. The sulfuric acid likely solved my problem (in combination with a plunger). It overflowed a little & attacked radiator pipes due to me underestimating the foam expansion rate (user error - perhaps poured too fast), but AFAIK it did not harm the drain pipes. Sulfuric acid would not be a good early stage choice, but when most chemicals and techniques have been exhausted it’s one of the most effective options.
The problem you will quickly run into is that you poored many chemicals in your pipe, so new chemicals might react with them.
That’s good general advice. But note that my episode spans many weeks. I know not to mix them (acid & bleach in particular). Every chemical went in on a different day with a water flush in between (which often took ½ day or a full day).
Bleach is not a dissolvant, it’s a disinfectant. It’s of no use to free a pipe.
I’m a bit confused on this because many of the consumer grade drain cleaners seem to rely on bleach as the active ingredient. Some of them are simply “thick bleach” (in a gel form).
To my limited knowledge, the best chemicals are acid chlorhydric or soda. Never ever use both. acid chlorhydric might be bad for the pipes though, so soda is usually better. Acid chlorhydric is best to remove limestone. Soda is best to remove biomater. Both of these are very cheap.
Do you mean hydrochloric acid & caustic soda (aka sodium hydroxide/NaOH)?
The hair-specific drain cleaner I have is based on sodium hydroxide.
The 2-component one was based on sodium hydroxide & sodium hypochlorite (aka bleach). I don’t recall what the other cleaners were.
Another point of confusion: chemists told me consumer drain cleaners are useless against hair. Then I noticed hair-specific drain cleaners on the shelf, which somewhat supports the idea that universal/generic drain cleaners lack effect on hair. But then the hair-specific drain cleaner I bought only mentions sodium hydroxide as an active ingredient, and this is the same common ingredient in many non-specific drain cleaners.
Can you explain why you say this?
The same branch is shared by a bathroom (toilet, shower, sink) and those bathroom drains have never had a clog. Although they always periodically stunk despite full traps so I suspect a leak was always there. But since it’s only occasional I wonder if it’s a leak at the top of a pipe, not spillage. Well, otoh there might be spillage going on in the bathroom because there are drain flies, which might be feeding on spillage from somewhere. It just seems bizarre that the odor only manifests occasionally.
The big branches meet at a main Y connector. That Y connector is new. The basement had a serious leak under the concrete a couple years ago. The basement floor was dug up and new pipe was installed. I doubt there would be any issues with this new pipework. I think the only segment that’s quite dicey is from the kitchen sink to wherever it joins the bathroom.
(edit) are you perhaps thinking that the clog has moved along and will clog again downstream? I doubt that, because the diameter of the kitchen drain is 40mm and it eventually joins a branch that’s like 90mm in diameter. If this thing were to snowball for some reason, it could probably be reached from the cleanout at the main Y fitting, no?
Maybe if I track down the MSDS it might say, but I can say for sure. The bottle is labelled as a pro drain cleaner for that purpose. So it’s not likely laboratory or military grade or anything intense.
That’s worrying just because I have a suspicion that there are accordion pipes. So I just did a test. Plugged the drain & filled the sink to the top with water. Pulled the plug and ran to the basement. There is a strong gushing from the main pipe. So I’d say at least most of the water is going to the right place. So certainly it’s not a case where the sewage found a complete alternate path. The clog is in fact gone. Though there’s always a chance of leaks, which in this case would be into or below a concrete slab.
If I’m in this forum asking why my whole kitchen floor smells like sewage in a few weeks from now, plz remind me about this.
I appreciate the tip. The shank was ½ a bicycle axle bolt with non-standard threading. I could not have switched to a standard bolt because the nuts that interface to ball bearings needed to be on the bolt.
Good to hear your anchors held up over 10 years. Someone else just mentioned they’ve not bee so lucky: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/5372639 I suppose it’s important that they be used in a dry climate.