thevoiceofreason2b

2 related questions:

My master bath is right above my kitchen. Last week I saw a crack in the ceiling above my kitchen sink, so I put my finger on it and it went all the way through the sheetrock, I saw the sheetrock was rotted away, I opened the hole to about 6"x6" and I can see that there is a leak OF 3 DROPS of WATER every time I flush the toilet upstairs.

So the house is about 20 years old, there have been many many problems with it, so I am thinking... could this have been happening since the house was built? 3 drops x 6 flushes a day x 365 days x 20 years = 131,400 drops. I also replaced that toilet 18 months ago, could that have caused the damage?

Q1) could this 18 or so drops a day have been happening for 20 years, or would it only take a year and a half to wear down 1/2" of sheetrock?

The reason I ask is that the leak is coming from the toilet waste pipe, which is running though a beam to mate up with the toilet seal flange, and I think that the leak is between the 45 elbow and the bottom end of the flange. I would have to rip out a lot of ceiling to get to that leak, and I am pretty sure that I will sell the house before the next 20 years.

Q2) If I fix up the 6x6 hole in the sheetrock... I was thinking of gluing a sponge (or towel) to the top of the piece I put in, so the drip would be absorbed (and evaporate), you think that would last another 20 years?

Any better solutions?

When there is a windstorm one of my son's walls squeak. The wall that faces the west. I can walk up to the wall and push it with my hands to get the squeak sound. I tried throwing a few screws in it, trying to keep the sheetrock closer to the studs, but no real effect on the squeak and since then the head of one of the screws has popped up out of the mud.

So what can I do:

Put in 30 or 40 screws and hope that all of them can hold it down?

Rip out the sheetrock and put up a new piece?

Do I need to re-enforce the frameing?

I am stuck with this forever?

...any other ideas?

Thanks in Advance.

-Mark

I am loosing my work laptop, so I want to get one that is similar. This is a Dell Latitude D630 (2 years old), when I look at "Properties" under my computer I see:

INTEL(R) Core(tm)2 Duo CPU

T7100 @ 1.80GHz

1.18 Ghz, 3.49 GB RAM

So I have a Intel processor T7100, but I do not understand how to compare that to what I see advertised. What Speed is this, 1.8Ghz or 1.18 GHz?... I see that I have 3.5GB of Ram, but I do not understand how to find a laptop of a similar speed then this one.

(I have an older laptop that is painfully slow, so I want to avoid getting one that would slow down). Any help?

Thanks.

I have an in-ground pool (in Pa, so I only use if 4 months a year), the pool pump and filters are circa 1990 or 1992 (I bought the house with the pool in it). There is a DE filter. Pool is fine, except that when I charge up the DE filter, I see DE come out into the pool from the return ports. This only happens when I add De, not during operation. I was not sure what was up, so I cleaned out the filter today (took it apart) and took a inventory of the valve and the filtert: the brackets that are holding the sleaves (it is a 48sqft filter) are cracked, one of the drain pipes (that was closed off) was leaking, and it is fixed with a hose clamp, when ever I backwash, I can hear air getting into the system though the multi-valve, I have to keep the pump running all day, because if I turn off the pump, air gets into the filter, and the De problem, which now I think is the multi-valve gasket (which I replaced last year).

So my options are; 1) put a new $20 gasket in the multi-valve and hope that it was a gasket seating problem and ignor the rest 2) install a new multi-valuve (assuming I can find one to replace without doing to much plumming re-work... anyone know how much that would cost?) 3) It's an old system, replace the pump, valve and filter, and start anew. Basicly is there a time in a pool's life where you just replace all of the hardware?... I already re-did the plaster, so now I am wondering about this..the pool is 95% fine (if you don't count the running the pump all the time, Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

I have hard water (~13gr/gal), I am in NE PA I want to install a water softener. The house seems to be "pre-plumbed" for a water softener, however the way the pipes are set up there is a T before where the softener would go, and one side goes to the water heater and one goes to the softener (there is no softener now, so it is going though the by-pass"

I have a 80 gal electric water heater.. it is a about 2 years old now, and I drain it every 2 years or so. It makes makes sense to me that the softened water should go to the heater, but I do not understand why it is not plumbed this way... though there have been other things wrong with this house too.. Will softened water HURT the water heater?

Thanks in Advance.

-Mark

I a trying to figure out how much KWH a pump costs me to run all day. The sticker on the pump says:

8 Amps

230 Volt

1.5 HP

I know that KW = HP x 0.746 so that is:

1.5 HP x 0.746 = 1.1 KW

but I also know that Watt = Volt x Amp so that is:

230 Volt x 8 Amp = 1840 W = 1.84 KW

Why are these not equal? What am I missing here to get KW??

THANKS.

My 2 year old (we I am assuming it was not the wife) split some milk down a floor vent (this is for the central heat/ ac) in our house, and now the house smells. We reached down as far as we can to clean out (and it is better) but there is stil a smell. The duct below the vent is a flexible duct, so there are many nooks and crannies down there, so I am looking for a good way to clean that out?

FYI: the duct is in the floor of the first floor of the house, so that is the celing of the basement, but the basement is finished, and I would prefer NOT going through the sheetrock celing in the basement to pull this out and clean out... any ideas here?

Thanks

In 2005 I had a large amount of income (really large), however because of Accounting delays, I only made my initial Federal and state payment for this large 2005 tax in January 2006, I filed an extention in April then in September 2006 made the final payment. I paid $10K+ to the state of NJ, because my gain was from a corporation there, I do not live in NJ. My question is: since I made the payment in 2006 for my 2005 state taxes, should I be putting this amount ($10K+) of 2005 taxes paid in 2006 in Schedule A, line 5 of my 2006 1040 return... ?

That is how I read the instructions for the 1040 schedule A (page A-3, left column on the bottom), but it seems that this would take the $10K straight off my federal tax bill, and the feds would owe me money.... is that correct??

Doesn't seem right to me...

Thanks in advance