Plumbing

Question: Good afternoon Ari. I read your column religiously and as a new home owner, find your information most valuable. Recently, the City of Winnipeg located a water leak affecting the water line to my house.  After detecting the leak from a routine street check on the water main, … [Read more...] about Water Main Leak

Question: I have a 10-year-old house and have recently begun noticing that there is water leaking through the floor in the bathroom in three distinct spots. The grout between the tiles seams to be in pretty good shape and I recently sealed it. I also re-caulked around the tub. The water appears … [Read more...] about Water Leak From Bathroom

Question: We moved into our 4-level split house last year, and performed numerous renovations as the house was quite run down, even though it's only 14 years old. However, we noticed a couple of problems within the house that we haven't been able to resolve. Our 4-piece bathroom on the third … [Read more...] about Water Hammer & Caulking in Tub

Question: We are having an ongoing problem with a sewer gas smell in our en-suite. We have checked numerous things to find where it is coming from, including opening up walls in several places to check for cracked pipes or other points where this may be coming from. One place that we opened the … [Read more...] about Sewer Gas

Question: My house is situated at the bottom of a hill, just above the Assiniboine River. It is really a beautiful location, except for the fact that all the precipitation that falls on the neighbourhood above us (one city block) tends to end up in our back yard. For the most part that is not a … [Read more...] about Sewer Backup Prevention

Question: After having our house built approximately 1 1/2 years ago, the basement floor moved. It is my understanding that this is normal since they call it a floating concrete floor. Unfortunately, the copper pipes from the hot water tank were placed tightly against the roof and subsequently … [Read more...] about Plastic Supply Piping

Question: Hello: We had noticed a “soft” spot in the carpet in our basement but did not think much about it until we decided to re-do the rec-room this fall. When we lifted the carpet we found a pipe opening (about 4 inches across) coming from the concrete. It’s dry, so we are not sure what it … [Read more...] about Pipe in Basement Floor

Question: Dear Inspector.  I have a toilet in my basement beside my rec-room. About every 10 minutes, or so, it will make a sound like a partial flush. The tank doesn’t drain. It’s just a short burst of water or something that sounds like a partial flush. It is driving me nuts. It almost … [Read more...] about Noisy Toilet & Eavestrough Leak

Question: Dear Ari: I am a faithful reader of your Sunday articles and find them both useful and enjoyable. Now I need your expertise We live in a 56 year old two storey home with two bathrooms. The upper floor is not being used any longer, due to my wife’s inability to get upstairs. … [Read more...] about Leaky Toilet Drain