OT: Plumbing Parts

I'll just bet you were.

No, you don't -have- to, but...

-- It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Weather is better than living in a weenie state.

Still, that proportioning valve is a work of art. I still can't get over the fact that I can be in the shower and not do the 'Homer Simpson' dance if SWMBO happens to open a tap anywhere in the house. The temperature just doesn't vary. I Like.

I suppose by now, thermostatic regulators are commonly available in plainer, more reliable mixer valves but I have done no homework on the subject.

--Winston

Ooo. Busted.

(...)

Well, *that's* good. Ya'll had me worried there.

--Winston

(...)

It's one of those things that looks like it might be difficult and time - consuming but is really easy and fairly fast, like getting gas bottles refilled.

Normally.

Huh.

--Winston

I bow to your superior rhetoric and reason. :)

--Winston

Hurricanes every 20 years VS earthquakes?

I'll take the earthquakes any time. After the first dozen, it is not a big deal. And, it's the weenie thing to do, after all. :)

--Winston

Dunno. The proportional pressure single-control mixing valve is OK but not perfect, in my experience. Still, unlike the originator of the thread, who might have different things in his water than I have had, I've found the Moens fairly trouble free, especially if you avoid the plastic knobs (pretend you are handicapped and get the metal levers.)

I loved the shower controls our friends in Britain had - one knob for temperature, set and forget to the temperature you like, one knob for flow rate from off to full. If the incoming water temperature changed, the valve just dealt with it - which the version of the Moen valve that I'm familiar with does not, as it's purely pressure proportioning.

I can find Chinese versions of that type of two-knob control on sleazebay easy enough, but nothing in real fixtures, at least on a less than 20 minutes web search. And the Chinese specs (...probably optimistic) are only +/- 2C, which is actually a fairly big swing as shower comfort goes.

I doubt I want to mess with British pipe threads in my US house, though I suppose with PEX I might be able to get something compatible from over there to install here. It would probably still be technically forbidden due to lack of the right approvals. I just find it strange, having seen that system, that we don't appear to have it available here, as it makes so much sense to me.

We do have lots of calcium here.

Ironically, this is the first problem I've had with this particular mixer. I think that if I had no problem obtaining the repair parts, if the instructions had been tested and corrected for usability, I'd only have the cost of the parts to complain about. That's really no big deal, so I wouldn't have posted. As usual the vendor appears to have two goals: Sell lots of valves and support the plumbers and contractors who recommend them. The consumer? Not so much.

That must have been Some Valve! I hear some pretty disappointing stories about British water pressure and temperature from friends who've traveled. :) I did occasionally stumble across a Moen mixer that had two valves on the web as you say. I'm not familiar with them at all, however.

Yikes! That's almost as bad as a non-thermostatic mixer.

I'm pretty sure I'd be happier with only one cartridge to replace per mixer rather than two. :)

--Winston

Have it your way. At least you know when a hurricane is coming. :)

On 7/10/2012 10:36 AM, Winston wrote: ...

...

Until the one that _is_ "the big deal" and like the EF5 tornado or the Cat 5 hurricane, all the bravado in the world means nothing.

--

+1

I was chatting with neighbors on the sidewalk a couple years back. A little shaker struck and a moment later, my new neighbor came rocketing out of his house at warp speed.

A moment later he began to look a little sheepish at his panic. "I said, During the next big shaker, it'll be just the natives that get squashed because everyone else will have the sense to get out of the house."

I think that made him feel a little better.

:)

--Winston

Good for you, Win. As a new Californicator in 1968, I was mad as hell after my family came running out of the house one day while I was mowing the lawn. I shut it down and asked what the hell had happened and they told me I'd missed my first earthquake. Then Dad and I were vacationing in Puerto Vallarta and I slept through another little one. Both were 4 or less on the Richter Scale. Noisemakers. It was my third year in CA when I finally felt a shaker and got to say "What's the big deal?"

Give me li'l shakers instead of the destruction of a tornado, hurricane, or ice storm, thankyouverymuch. I don't live in the big shitty, so there are no skyscrapers to be in, fall from, or be under.

-- It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

(...)

+1 'Single Family Detached's do extremely well in shakers. By the time the blood pressure goes up, the event is over.

I was in the second story of a ShabbyBilt(TM) tiltup in Santa Clara during the 1989 Loma Prieta shaker.

That was impressive. I cannot imagine what a thrill ride it must've been in a skyscraper! Weeee!

--Winston

Spelling correction NOT Weeee! BUT Peeeee!

Then there was a massive run on clean underwear....

We've come full circle, back to 'plumbing parts'. :)

--Winston

The day after our new furnace was installed, SWMBO and I were sitting, reading the paper when everything gave a little tremble; her question was "I think your new furnace has a problem!"