Plumbing Skills

Soldering copper water supply lines is not a difficult skill.  Even a rookie can learn to solder leak-proof joints in 30 minutes. The…

The best cure for banging water pipes is a water hammer arrester with a lubricated internal piston. The sealed piston works better than capped…

Pipe straps can loosen over time, allowing pipes to creak and groan as water temperature changes, but you can stop this annoying chatter from…

Whether you're working with PVC, ABS or cast iron, Mission couplings are essential for fitting a section of pipe into an existing run of…

With a little practice, anyone can solder copper water pipe. Learn how to cut, clean and flux pipe and fittings, how much solder to use, and…

Sink sprayers can develop leaks just like any other water line, but they're trickier to spot. The solution usually involves replacing either the…

Shutting off the house water supply to change a leaky shutoff valve can be a big inconvenience. Instead, just add a repair valve and leave the…

Whether you're installing a better-flushing toilet or resetting the old one after remodeling, these tips will help you do it faster and with…

Kitchen and bath drains that get frequent use are usually full of water, but basement floor drains can dry out, allowing sewer gas in. To slow…

Kitchen sink clogs—usually caused by grease or overworked garbage disposers can be easily removed in minutes with these simple tools and…

CPVC tubing is ideal for water supply lines. It's easy to cut and assemble, using compression of cemented fittings. It's durable too.…

An unusually noisy outdoor faucet may be due to something as simple as a worn-out washer. To find out, disassemble the faucet from the outside,…

If you've tried a new flapper to fix your running toilet and it still runs don’t give up hope. Here's a fix that sure to work.

Replace a leaky or clogged sprayer hose and head in fifteen minutes. The trick is getting to the hose connection under the sink.

Use a special “slip” or “no-stop” coupling to quickly and easily splice in a new section of copper pipe or to add or…

You can often fix water softeners by checking the brine tank for salt problems or simply cleaning the resin bed or several other key parts. All…

Diagnose a bad resin bed problem and replace the resin bed in your water softener. Do it yourself and avoid the expensive service call.

Repair a leak around a faucet stem by tightening the packing nut or replacing the packing washer. Both are simple fixes.

Repair a leak around the packing nut of a street valve by wrapping new packing rope around the stem, a five-minute fix.

Rebuild the control valve on your water softener and restore your softened water flow. It only takes an hour once you find the correct rebuild…