LESLIE: Alan in Ohio has a plumbing question. What’s going on?
ALAN: A house we purchased recently we’ve got [a little extra] (ph) plumbing pipes in there from copper with some of the new things, some galvanized on the old section and some plastic with something in between.
TOM: Little bit of everything, huh?
ALAN: Yeah, a little bit of everything. My question was I’m not real good on copper pipes for soldering.
TOM: OK.
ALAN: What are your thoughts about going with this CPVC that’s good for hot and cold?
TOM: Well, there are a lot of homes begin built with the new plastic piping and I think it’s standing up extremely well. If you’ve got a lot of work to do it is a very do-it-yourself, friendly product to use, Alan. Why – do you have a lot of work to do? I mean why are we having this conversation? What’s going on with that plumbing that’s going to force you to have to do so much work?
ALAN: Well, we’d like to add a bathroom to the basement …
TOM: OK.
ALAN: … because we need more bathroom space and the other problem we have also is right now when somebody is in the shower and you crack a faucet at, say, the kitchen sink, the shower instantly either goes hot or cold; you know, depending on what you turn on at the kitchen faucet.
TOM: OK, well that actually can be solved by replacing the shower valve. What you need is a pressure-balanced valve. That’s a type of valve that can be installed in a shower that maintains the same mix that you have, in terms of hot and cold water, regardless of how much pressure is in either pipe. You follow me? So you’ll reduce the flow but you won’t change the temperature of the water.
ALAN: Oh.
TOM: So here you were thinking you had to replumb your house, Al, and we just saved you a big bunch of work. (Leslie chuckles)
ALAN: Yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks a lot.
TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974.
Yeah Leslie, you know, sometimes we make more work for people (Leslie chuckles), but we could occasionally make less.
LESLIE: So Alan’s plumbing poo-poo platter, if you will, really isn’t such a bad thing.
TOM: Not so bad and pretty easy to do and that’ll definitely have him avoiding those cold spurts of water in the shower.
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