Bathtub Installation, Repair and Maintenance

Nick's Plumbing & Air Conditioning Live Video Transcription:

You’re going to play the waiting. I can’t. It just blanked out. Oh, here we go. We are live. Hey guys. Welcome back to another weekly edition. Today’s topic. We’re talking tubs, tub of peanut butter, tubbs, tubbs. You get in. Oh, like bath bathtubs. I don’t know if you know what that is. They’ve, you do smell good today. But besides that we are talking tugs today. You guys. Exciting stuff. Um,

tubs. You’re just going to sit there and do that all you said. Exciting. I was like this and sit there for 10 minutes and do that. Okay. I see what’s going on today. So, bathtubs, bathtubs, what are things that can go wrong in our bath tubs? Well, a lot can go wrong with your bathtub and heights. Montrose, wes, you, river oaks going down memorial, older homes, 19 seventies or prior. You’re going to have drum traps. So what can go wrong with your tub? Well, it starts with your drain mechanism. Your drain is either a cash to lead or it’s patched to pvc. Well, what can go wrong is it stops up in cracks. Yup. Comes separated, separated. You’re gonna. Have to think of one more. Oh really? Uh Huh. So separate. What else can happen? Keep us separated. We’ve attained this. What patina was that patina is the color comes off of your discoloration. Okay. Yeah.

Plumber. GotTa. Go. We gotta throw one big word in there every week. So this word today is patina. So when you have guests over there, you’re looking at it. But patina product that’s, you know, from the seventies, sixties, fifties, whatever. It’s time for you to update that. So when people go to your restroom, what do they look at? They’re looking at your faucets. They’re looking at your toilet. They’re judging you on the bathroom as well. I hate to say it, but it’s true. Absolutely. And if you leave a bathtub that is a one of these older cast iron with porcelain and the porcelains off, um, you’re leaving your waste and overflow. So, uh, what the finished coming off called Patina. Um, that kind of says something right now. So how do you fix those things? We’re going to go through today a little bit of, of how you fix that now on a waste and overflow.

If it potatoes, there’s no fixing that, there’s just replacement and they make some retrofit kits that we can either keep the same piping structure that you have behind that tub, um, and those kits will fit right into it. Or you’ve got to get behind the tub and take out that call the waste and overflow piping and install new piping, which will give you nice, pretty shiny, uh, pieces that are in your tub showing right now. If your tub has porcelain, there are companies out there, plumbing companies don’t do this, but there are plumbing. Uh, I’m sorry. There are companies that are resurfacing companies that will come Redo the top and the apartment industry. This is really big, um, that they’re refinishing the porcelain and it takes less than a day to do it. And it looks brand new. Now in saying that, I don’t know how long that product last, but I think that last quite a bit of time.

And I’ve heard rumors, it’s between 100 to 200 to get that resurfaced and porcelain and make it look really nice. Um, and if you do that portion, you’re going to want to do a new waste and overflow and put new shiny pieces in that tub. When you say waste and overflow, right, explain that to the, to the audience so that they know exactly. You know, we’re plumbers, we know what it is, but if it was a generic person that might not know anything about tubs, the waste portion is when you turn that faucet on, water’s coming out of it. Well, the bottom of the tub is the waste the drain, right? Yes. That’s the drain on the bottom. The top part is the overflow. So if you’re in the tub and you fall asleep in the tub or you leave the room filling the tub before it overflows onto the floor, it goes through that overflow.

So that’s a safety precaution to where that tub will never fill above a certain level. How old were you when you figured out what the overflow was? The only reason why I ask is I literally remember what is this thing where he figured out how to plug it. Is there a hole underneath it? Oh, it’s just a curious kid in a small kid taking a bath and I was like, well, what is this? That’s when I found out about the overflow. Yeah. Some people just don’t know if that was an Nino and I thought it was interesting. Maybe I’m silly now. We have had clients that their overflow there, their waste, I mean is not draining properly and it’s draining very slow. We had an incident over here in the heights where the wife was filling the tub and it was already a slow draining tub.

It needed to be cleaned out. Um, she left. The bathroom, went downstairs and started doing something and forgot to go check on the tub when she realized that she forgot to go check on the tub because she’s drawing her bath water. It was already too late. It was coming through the ceiling in the kitchen. Is that how she found out? That’s how she found out there’s the tub. So asked me how much that cost, how much did that cost? That was a $85,000 fix that. Ruined all the hardwoods downstairs. They couldn’t extract the water fast enough. Wow. And it came down, that’s you’ve got to image of imagine that tub was running full force and by the time she made it from the kitchen after it had already saturated the entire ceiling and then started coming through the ceiling. Uh, and then it went all upstairs in that bathroom. It was a mass that’s a, there was a ton of demo and those hardwood floors downstairs couldn’t be saved and the whole downstairs was the same hardwood, so you got to take it all out so they had to move out and get that done. So in other words, you don’t want to leave the tub running and leave that room. And especially if you’ve already got a slow drain, which means that overflow can’t take the excess water. Right.

So in a tub I’ve experienced, right. So there’s different types of waste and overflows. Right, right, right. Not even on the back side, not the lid, the PVC, but even on the front side, is that the proper. That’s the proper term. Print side, yeah. Three times. And you’ve got your lifting turn and that is the piece on the bottom where you twist it up and it allows water to go through. And when you want to stop the Tub up, you turn it and it drops down and makes a a, a seal. Now the overflow portion of that is always open, so that’ll always be able to drain water. If you’re filling that top. The second one that you have as a lift in turn. No, you just did lift & turn. Oh, I did. Didn’t I lift and turn? The second one is the trip lever.

I’m sorry. Triple lever. Triple leverage. You’ve got the lever that is on the overflow itself and it’s a dual function overflow. It’s got the trip lever in it and it’s got holes where the water can still go behind it. If you’re filling the tub and that tub will never go onto the floor. The bottom of it lifts and raises and creates that seal from that lever. The third one is a push fitting where you push it down with your foot or your hand and it makes that seal. And uh, it fills the tub and again, your overflow is always open. No mechanical part up there. Those are the three types of overflows that you can do. Now. All overflows come in every color. Uh, and I’m actually missing one overflow there. Our Jacuzzi oversized tubs that have a cable drive and it is a cable the top of your overflow twists. Yeah. You know, and now you just say that we’ve almost forgotten about that one and that will twist and close off your waist and make that seal. But again, it’s a dual function overflow where that overflow will still allow water to go behind it. So your tub doesn’t go onto the floor.

So four types. Sorry you guys. I’m probably going to get bashed from other plumbing companies. It’s okay. It is. Okay. It won’t be the first time. That’s right. What about, uh, so when we’re talking about tubs, there’s 100 different kinds tons you can be as basic as what you know 90 percent of people have in their homes to the most ornate, freestanding center drain. Left drain, right drain corner, drain. You have cornered cubs, you’ve got all kinds of different tufts now. Sky’s the limit on what you can buy. I would not recommend you, and this is what all these builders in Houston or buying. I would not buy a steel tub with a porcelain overlay. I would. Those are weak. They don’t last. You will be redoing that tub in five years and when you redo that Tub, you’ve got two choices. You’re calling the resurfacing company hoping they can get it done or you’re ripping out tile and installing a new tub.

So cheaper version refinishing. Do you can’t do it. You’re going to be spending thousands putting in a new tub. I would go with either a cast iron with the porcelain overlay. I would go with some kind of fiberglass. Uh, I mean they’re making tubs at a copper. I mean, you name it. Oh yeah. There’s some great looking cups. Stone tubs, a very expensive tufts. So you can literally spend your, your cheapest hub that you’re going to buy is that steel tub with a porcelain overlay. Those are about 150. You can go all the way up to 20 grand, probably maybe more than most expensive one that we’ve ever put in is about 15,000. So the sky is the limit. You guys. I’m in my house personally. I put in Koehler. I’m a big fan of Kohler. I just put in one of their, uh, Air tub Kohler. Those are expensive but very nice. Um, it’s going to last me forever. I will never be redoing that tub. You bathe a lot? I’m a shower guy. No, that’s why it’s basically gonna last me forever to see you with like a bubble bath after a stressful, a stressful day. And what do you call those things faloofahs? What do you call it?

You can tell I didn’t have an avenue to and abusing those. Yeah. So, uh, but I, I did an oversize six foot tub. Yeah, I seen it. It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. So they make you guys tubs that are four and a half foot long to six foot long. Yeah. Again, I’m a big fan of the six foot tubs. If you can get that in your house standards five. But if you can get a six foot tub in your home, I would highly recommend that you can get. You can surface your entire body in that six foot tub, typically, unless you’re Shaquille O’neal. And then you need like a 75 foot touch. So funny. That’s the native pumped about up.

Then you’re going to need a seven or eight foot pallet. ESP going on. That’s weird. So. But these fiberglass tubs, I’m wanting to get into that for a second. What problems have come into the office on these fiberglass tubs? Oh, uh, not installed correctly. Not Proper bracing. Okay. Underneath, um, some, I don’t know. Same kind of things. Leaks, leaks from. What were you looking for here to see cracks in the tub? Oh yeah. Okay. On the fiberglass you have a. not so much sometimes. Depends, but so how does it crack in the tub happen you guys. And uh, I can tell you that it’s not properly installed. So if something happens three, four, five years down the road and your fiberglass tub cracks, it’s because of the support wasn’t done properly or it was in a bind, meaning I’m a put my hands up singing. See at that tub was not symmetrical. It was off. So every time water is in that tub, every time you get in that pub, create stress, stressing that tub to the Max and eventually it creates a stress fracture. Everybody’s heard that term stress fracture. So personally I have never seen a fiberglass how go bad, um, and less. It’s in a bind not installed, right? In my 19 years.

And obviously with you being in this batch and overseeing all of that, you haven’t either. Yeah. You know, a lot of times the types of tubs, whenever we’re talking to customers that’ll tell us the type. But yeah, that’s not very often that you see most of the time it’s the old steel tubs still on the porch and overlay you guys stay away from him. That’s it. Today, any questions that you have? John’s available. I’m available. Call us, even if you don’t use us, I tell you that every week we have been getting phone calls and we’ve actually had some that are coming from out of Houston, which is interesting. Had some in San Antonio. We’ve had a couple of out of state. So we’re here to answer them. We’ll help you every way that we can. Whether we do the job or we don’t do the job. Absolutely. So the joke of the week because you’re joking. Legit. Don’t know any jokes. Okay. Here we go. Uh, what do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear. Thank you guys. Thank you. Also next, next week, same time, same place.

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