January Plumbing News

The work continues! Little by little, the oldest and weakest pipes in the building are making themselves known. Mr. Simpson, the plumber, is undoubtedly quite happy we like to repair leaks before they become more serious.

Today's jobs included a new "lead bend" which connects the nasty end of the toilet to the main waste riser, and some steam vent repairs on the lobby radiator. He also inquired about the pump, and I will say that it seems hot water arrives more quickly in my bathroom than it did before, let me know if you disagree.

In the middle of steam heat season, there are some knocks and bangs from our radiators and steam pipes. This was discussed with Mr. Simpson, he noted a few things. First, steam vent valves may fail over time. They can be easily unscrewed and replaced and as they are available in all local hardware stores, it's a simple task to do. If your valve hisses or "spits", or you have a radiator that takes too long to heat up, consider a new vent valve.

For banging and clanking noises, make sure your radiator valves are fully open. Steam is an "all or nothing" system, and if the valve is not all the way open, condensation will collect and cause the rattling and banging noises during the steam cycle. Sometimes, the oldest valves will have some loose or broken parts, and will make lots of noise when the steam goes on and off.

He also advised me to make sure the radiators are properly pitched. The valve end needs to be lower than the vent end, to let the condensate run out and back down to the boiler. Over the years, the constant movement can push the radiator's feet into the wood, and the radiator will be out of alignment. You can cure this by placing a small flat piece of wood under the radiator's feet farthest away from the control valve, and this should restore the pitch.

After all of this, he did say that steam is not a 'silent' system and he's never seen one that is completely quiet. By following some of his advice, you can make your radiators quieter and more efficient. There's a website http://www.heatinghelp.com/ that has lots of interesting steam heat information, if you really want to know more!

is it hot yet?

Today, the hot water recirculating pump was replaced. Our plumber noted the old one had a couple of it's propeller blades broken off, and simply wasn't pumping. He also thought it had survived far longer than they are designed to, and so a new one was installed. Shut off valves were installed too, on both sides of the pump. This will allow the water flow to the thing to be repaired/replaced without having to shut off water to the whole building, and will allow it to be shut off if it ever sprung a leak. You can see the work in the boiler room, right at the door to exit to the alley, just look up!The function is pretty simple, it will pull hot water slowly thorough the pipes, and should seriously shorten the wait time for hot water at any particular sink. It won't be instantaneous, this is a slow flowing pump, but we expect to see an improvement over what we had before.

As occurs when the house water supply is drained and air enters the pipes, expect some brown water, some spitting from the taps, and if there was sediment or rust in your plumbing, the little aerator or strainer at the end of the faucet may have to be cleaned. Let's hope the cold water problem is a thing of the past now!

Do we really need a computerized bookkeeping system?

After talking with Lolita about this, I no longer think we do. We can certainly teach her how to put her monthly reports into Excel, but the bookkeeper takes those and produces the yearly reports we need. It doesn't seem to be that complicated.

Anybody else have any thoughts?

it's a group blog now!

The holidays are over, our house tree is lying in the front yard, on it's way to being chopped into mulch for spreading over a city park somewhere. A short walk around the neighborhood is short, cause it's so cold. And here at the co-op blog, it's becoming a group affair.

Our tenant-owners got their email invites today, and once you get a google password, you're an author! That should make things interesting. I Can't wait to see what happens next!

Dumbwaiters care and feeding

Our Dumbwaiter is a luxury that few apartment houses can match. Used primarily to dispatch trash, but in the old days it got more use. Deliveries from neighborhood merchants were placed on the dumbwaiter, along with firewood and various packages, saving us from having to deal with delivery people.

Nowadays, some of the historic district co-ops have abandoned them, but we consider it indispensable. Operated manually with an original 1920's rope pulley system, they really meet our needs. There aren't a lot of people who can maintain the things, and so we do our best to take care of the minor issues ourselves. That Once or twice a year, the pulleys need basic lubrication, these are photos of how to do this task.

NOTE- want to see these pictures larger? Right click and hit 'save target as' and save it to a file for future reference. When saved to your computer hard drive, they open up in a larger size.

On the roof, inside the shaftway, is a giant pulley that, when spun by the rope, lifts the car up and down. The mechanism is a wood cradle holding the rod, which has the pulley and a primitive break system, so a heavy load won't cause the thing to plummet to the basement.

Periodically, this mechanism needs oiling. You'll know when the rope is so hard to pull you are sweating by the time the car is at the 2nd floor. So, when this happens, it's time to lubricate. Get the little key for the dumbwaiter doors from the rack in the meter room, open the doors and look inside. You'll see the large round wheel with a smaller wheel behind it (that's the brake). Generously squirt WD-40 on the rod that attaches to the wooden ends, and reach behind the large wheel to squirt the oil into the openings on the smaller one. Pull the ropes up and down, they should be measurably easier to operate. If not, repeat squirting the oil. For some reason, the dumbwaiter serving apts 2. 22. 32 42 side stiffens up sooner, the other one is usually easier to pull in general.

This maintenance is required every 6 months to a year, or when the ropes become hard to pull. All in all, easy maintenance job that saves the house money bringing in an expert to squirt the same can of oil. These photos are from last week, when I oiled the pulleys on both sides.

Look ma, no leaks!

Our building received a new roof and a thorough waterproofing in 2006-2007. These pics show installation of corrugated metal sheets along the brick portion of the roof and elevator and dumbwaiter shafts. Originally coated with a thick black tar, there were too many small leaks that let water into the brickwork (and then down into the apartments). Jon Wickers, owner of a prestigious building restoration firm (who has a long relationship with the co-op) did a complete evaluation to see where our leaks were coming from. He discovered the tar coating actually trapped moisture inside the 2 layers of brick, and designed this system to cover the side and top of the masonry with an aluminum skin.

The first step involved literally slicing into the brickwork to insert a thick sheet of copper flashing. This ensured any water would drip down, hit this and end up on the roof instead of heading down through the entire brick walls of the house. Once this was installed, the bricks were cleaned up and the aluminum skin was mounted.

The historic district required nothing this modern be visible from the street, so the terra-cotta front portion got a thorough, but old-fashioned waterproofing, with sandblasting, re-grouting and pointing.

As you can tell, this job was done in the fall, when the workers won't collapse from the heat! The following spring, a layer of white roofing material was laid down, to complete the job. Air vents were installed to let hot air out, and the original skylights were pronounced good enough to be repaired instead of replaced, thanks to their good old-fashioned thick glass and galvanized steel frames. Unfortunately, the dumbwaiter "mini" skylights were too far gone, and were capped off, leaving our dumbwaiters in the dark for the first time in 80 years. It was a small price to pay for waterproofing, though. The top floor apartment owners were able to throw away their rain buckets and umbrellas, the operation was a success!

You can see the brick dust after a stout saw blade sliced through the tar and a few inches into the bricks. In this slot, the copper flashing was inserted into the wall. The horizontal metal strips will support the new skin.

The cylindrical air vent lets hot air out without a fan, and allows any moisture to escape.

All done, the new white aluminum covering should last a long, long time. Later, white metal caps will cover the top stone "cap" of the brickwork, keeping any water out of our walls.

The elevator shaft receives it's metal walls. As the work was being done, it was noticed that the rain gutter on this structure was mis-placed, and during a storm was directing some water into the air shafts (the arrow shaped appendage) that ventilate the elevator and your sun-room closets. The mystery of how rainwater ended up in the lower floor apartments every now and then was solved!

The stairs to the roof fully encased, even the 4 fireplace flues got the treatment, to keep any water out!

Here's the 'before' shot, with the old layers of bubbling tar shown. Each 'bubble' drained out really old water when they were pierced, this section of the old tar was not removed because it was only covering the chimney flues.
You'd never guess from the street that we have a white energy efficient water repellant roof up here. The terra-cotta on the left was later re-grouted and any chips or cracks sealed with a color-matched stone cement.
The TV antennae were removed from the wall and attached to the plumbing vent, not even a screw or nail was allowed to pierce the buildings new skin. On the ground is the aluminum cap for the old dumbwaiter skylights, which were rusted beyond repair.

In the beginning

Here are the brochures that were printed up before the first building in Elm Court was constructed. It was given out by the Queensboro Corporation and also inserted into the daily newspapers, and were designed to promote all of the deluxe features of our beautiful co-op apartments.