Our first new house together - HELP!

[tsap seui]

. . .

 

In that sitting I couldn't have made it any more beautiful than they did, without going through a lot of hassle just to round up tools and materials. Quite honestly, had I been there I would have been a "third testicle" to the craftsman, would have most likely gotten the lao wei "discount" (girlfriend never told anyone that an American was involved) and I'd have driven myself nuts trying ot second guess the fellas every move....No needa The man did a great job.

 

. . .

 

tsap seui

 

Well put, here - probably the most important thing to remember. I'll guarantee that they know what they're doing - but also that you DON'T know what they're doing (or how to tell them if you do), and they darn sure don't know what you're doing. Just stay out of the way for the most part.

This is exactly what I was thinking. My girl said she had the contractor bit all figured out since she has done this before AND this is her home town.

 

We are talking forced heat and A/C or separate machines now. We figure we will need master furnace and A/C units for that, Also, is there a need for a master water heater - 2 bathrooms and kitchen considered? Any input?

 

I think I will just give my advice and then hide during the finishing. Of course I will have to do all the grunt work of painting etc. hahaha

 

It's rare that our area needs A/C so we don't have it but, I have never seen any forced air duct work in any residential homes I went into and looked at, up north or down south, they just don't seem to use it in residential, instead using the units you see hanging outside and on a wall inside....like the Australians and Kiwi's use.

 

We have instant hot units for showers, and I absolutely love them. You turn them completely off when not in use and give them a few minutes warm up when you want to take a shower. You can take back to back showers with them. You don't waste energy on keeping water in a large tank hot 24 hours a day and only turn them on when you want to get clean. Much more efficient than what we use in America...then again we all grew up with heating 40 or more gallons of water in a tank all day. I think the bathroom instant hots we have are made by a German company, they are digital, and have the word "Beatle" on them....pretty funny.

 

For the kitchen my wife put in a smalller instant hot tank for the sink. She had never heard of a dishwasher, still hasn't in America....LOL and would look at one as a complete waste of money, and energy...but that is just her. We don't have a lot of plates, glasses, etc to clean and she cleans any meal's dirty dishes so quick.....what the hell, she would laugh at me if I tried to install and hook one up in our home. I don't think she could ever get that "Americanized"...LOL Again, that is just her and how she looks at life. Being an electrician among other trades I see we hardly use any electricty in China on heating water, for anything. Amazing.

 

Just more views on how the situations are tackled by others....ya don't need to take what I say with even a grain of sand. Good luck with you guys approach....hard to be wrong if you like what you have.

tsap seui

[Randy W]

Zhuhai Topway Beatles Electrical Appliance Co., Ltd.

 

 

Zhuhai Topway Beatles Electrical Appliance Co. Ltd is a company jointly established by German Beatles Co. Ltd and Zhuhai Beatles Electrical Appliance Co. Ltd in 1998 mainly producing home electrical appliances.

[Fu Lai]

"mama" is the one who brought up forced air. It's another situation where it is best for me to just accept what they want.

 

Sidenote, at mamas this past week. It was colder inside than out. Everyone in the family knows this and now so do I. She didn't blink an eye when my girl brought me a huge comforter while I was sitting in the living room... while the windows were wide open at 2 degrees Celcius.

[Doug]

You know most of the lights burnt out the last time I was in China. I took the covers off and got the neon double tube thingie and then went to a home depot looking store and they don't carry that one type. Neither did any other store. So the wife calls a man and he fixes all of them. I have a lot of time on my hands and I knew where the industrial supply little shops were at one end of town. So I walked the whole thing. She calls me home for lunch and I said sure. So I took the last isle of stores and found one, that is ONE lighting store. They had exactly what I needed. Price? Well if I had done it myself it would cost the same as this repair man parts and all. Of course he gets a discount, and I'm not Chinese. But I was happy I found a supplier anyway. If needed again I will either negotiate a price or just call the little guy. Besides he was friendly and wanted to sit and compare China and the USA.

 

Oh and I think importing American bought plungers for the toilet is the only way to go. That cheap stuff in China is the same they sell in Walmart which lasts one usage and then the stick is through it.

 

I did replace the shower head and flex line I broke on the previous trip. Seems it wouldn't hold my weight when I tried to hang myself out of pure happiness. That felt good.

 

 

Now where to find better screws and nuts and tools..... next trip..... just so I know.

Edited December 5, 2012 by Doug (see edit history)

[Fu Lai]

GOT IT! 20th Floor, 149.5 m2, looking over the Yangtze River, or Chang Jiang, the longest river in Asia, and the third longest in the world. A multitude of my girl's lifelong pals live in the 1,600 condo complex so it is comfy. We are extremely happy.

 

 

[Randy W]

Congrats!

[knloregon]

" This gave me the ability to burn things outside the WOK. (A different take on "wok the dog" ...

 

Mike's (cautionary) accounts seem the best, and most consistent with my experience over the years working in renovation and running herd on contractors --- but without the culture and language barriers....

 

Personally (tongue in cheek) , I'm not into "woking the dog" --- but did, in one case, eat dog that wasn't identified in advance.

[knloregon]

And one thing I can't understand (that Mike and several others mentioned) --- the still continued reluctance to trap drains to prevent the incursion of sewer gas --- but for most of us who visited China last century --- even in the major cities -- concrete tiles covering surface sewer lines, and that constant sickly sweet smell.

[tsap seui]

GOT IT! 20th Floor, 149.5 m2, looking over the Yangtze River, or Chang Jiang, the longest river in Asia, and the third longest in the world. A multitude of my girl's lifelong pals live in the 1,600 condo complex so it is comfy. We are extremely happy.

Cool, it looks like everything is falling into place for you guys.

 

tsap seui

[Randy W]

And one thing I can't understand (that Mike and several others mentioned) --- the still continued reluctance to trap drains to prevent the incursion of sewer gas --- but for most of us who visited China last century --- even in the major cities -- concrete tiles covering surface sewer lines, and that constant sickly sweet smell.

 

My guess is that a straight drop is less likely to clog than an S-shape. Remember that the lines are all below floor level and that it would take a fairly major project to get to them. I would expect you could shop around for a decent floor-level trap. We didn't - even so, the typical stainless-steel caps seem to be adequate, if just barely.

 

The "surface sewer lines" are just concrete trenches which drain runoff down toward the river - most (but not all) have simply had the concrete tiles laid over the top. Anytime you can follow a trail of two foot wide concrete blocks - that's probably a sewer trench underneath.

[Randy W]

This is similar to what we have -

 

http://thumbs4.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/mkbdwdRuIccmxTJbpdZqu9A.jpg

 

 

Something like this may allow more water flow

 

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21bsf-yn9mL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

[tsap seui]

And one thing I can't understand (that Mike and several others mentioned) --- the still continued reluctance to trap drains to prevent the incursion of sewer gas --- but for most of us who visited China last century --- even in the major cities -- concrete tiles covering surface sewer lines, and that constant sickly sweet smell.

 

Yessir, like I always say, "they just ain't nothin' like walkin' the streets in Chinertucky gazin' upon the worlds most beautiful wimmins.....as they sahsha those sumptious tiny hineys in a fog of the overpowerin' perfume of.........sewer gas.

 

I find it oh so specially fitting that the US consulate in Guangzhou often has it outside entrance fouled with methane. Sort of a harbinger of what "lies" (both figuratively, and literally) inside on the filth floor.....I mean.....5th floor. The nearest corner to the consulate, the one by IKEA is the source of the methane elixir, one can only guess what lies underneath the covering of asphault and concrete. Alice in Cacaland?

 

AS dear lil' rabbit and I opened the door to the old hotel which houses the marriage bureau in wonderful downtown Shenyang.....we were literally blown back 2 or 3 steps from a powerful burst of eye tearin' sewer gas. It smelled like Larry the Cable guy had been eatin' seafood and drinkin' beer all night and we had somehow wound up with our noses in the same area as his anal pore as his lower intestines unloaded the rot from his gut, as it were.

 

We had innocently and so happily opened that door in anticipation of walking upstairs to the marriage bureau for the hilarity of a broom jump in Chinertucky. An event everyone should experience....we still laugh about our marriage, Chinertuckian style....anyhow, once the burst of methane subsided at the door lil' rabbit and I opened, we marched into the hotel lobby and in the methane fog I could see magnificent marble counter tops on the hotel's sign in desk, the usual Chinertuckians hangers on that seemed to be in abundance everywhere you go.....beautiful wimmins, security guards who look like military or something, and Chinertuckian menfolk with at least one or two cigarettes burning at anyone time. The whole scene in a daze or was that a HAZE of raw pure sewer gas.

 

Being a plumber, it only took my brain a nanosecond to figure out the problem and start laughing uncontrolaby at the whole situation. Even though the methane gas was thick enough to gag a maggot, us lowly humans beings adapt to the smell quickly and can act like there is not something terribly funny going on around us......that is....the rest of the human beings in that room could carry on like everything was okay.....lil' rabbit and I got quickly reduced to tears from our laughter, especially when I choked out the question, between guffaws....."Baby, did you have BIG P ???? That did it, lil' rabbit lost all control and even her phony face of seriousness in this fart smellin' hotel setting filled with people trying to act like there wasn't a big wet turd laying under one of the seat fouling the air with it's wickedness.....and her face broke into it's dimpled laugh mode, as we ran up the steps to the marriage bureau in hopes that we could possibly outrun the stench. HAHAHAHA No....we couldn't, outrun the smell.

 

And when we later finished our business with the delightful marriage bureau girls all in a row, who made me laugh uproarously as they shuffled us from one to the other, sometimes to one we had already been to 3 times, and finally dear brer rabbit and I jumped into our waiting taxi with our taxi driver friend from Fushun patiently sitting at the wheel....it only took one look at the poor fellows's face fallin' into flatulence fear and his look of aprehension in his rearview mirror for us to suddenly realize that our clothes had become saturated in the offul....make that awful....Chinertuckian plumber's attack on their own society by not trapping out any drains, thus making every person in a building, elevator, office, or innocently (as us) stepping inside our taxi.....suspect of cutting loose with the big one, Bertha.....the FART of all FARTS....or as my dear ol' southern momma once asked me when I had expelled a roomful of bad peanut butter and Ritz saltine gas which she had the dreadful misfortune of walking into....."Bubba, did yew sheee-it?" Busted, Iwuz.

 

Chinertucky, ya gotta love it.....tiny hiney's on beautifully clad gorgeous wimmins, and a tang of flatulence wafting in the air....stirred up by those writhing lil' butts as they wiggle by you.....botta bing, botta bang, botta boom boom

 

Off topic, but I will never understand how them lil' wimmins shake their booty like they do. I often ask lil' brer rabbit...."Baby, does that hurt when you twitch them cheeks like that?"

 

tsap seui

[tsap seui]

And one thing I can't understand (that Mike and several others mentioned) --- the still continued reluctance to trap drains to prevent the incursion of sewer gas --- but for most of us who visited China last century --- even in the major cities -- concrete tiles covering surface sewer lines, and that constant sickly sweet smell.

My guess is that a straight drop is less likely to clog than an S-shape. Remember that the lines are all below floor level and that it would take a fairly major project to get to them. I would expect you could shop around for a decent floor-level trap. We didn't - even so, the typical stainless-steel caps seem to be adequate, if just barely. The "surface sewer lines" are just concrete trenches which drain runoff down toward the river - most (but not all) have simply had the concrete tiles laid over the top. Anytime you can follow a trail of two foot wide concrete blocks - that's probably a sewer trench underneath.

 

Nothing to do with clogging...........P-traps are used under a floor, or where the drain line comes out of a wall to the fixture (kitchen sink, vanity, etc). S-traps are used when the drain line is under a fixture, like sticking out of a floor under a kitchen sink, or under a bath vanity. S-traps wouldn't be used under a floor.....too much wasted room.

 

The floor drains you posted would typically be glued into a 90 degree elbow which would lead the waste water to a nearby P-trap laying a quarter inch to the foot lower than the drain cover you show, in the floor. Quarter inch to the foot of fall is US residential code. One eighth is the codes minimum.

 

Terlets have a trap built into them.

 

Once did a home restoration where the homeowners great dane drank all the water out of his downstairs terlet while they were gone forthe day. The furnace happened to be in the same room as that basement bathroom and ......KABOOOM. Sewer gas and a spark in an enclosed area just doesn't work too well. The dog's quenching his thirst didn't burn the house down but it sure smoked the place from the methane flash fire.

 

Subsequently, the homeowner kept the bathroom door closed when not in use. Yes, June Cleaver, farts are combustable

 

tsap seui

Plumber crack kinda guy

Edited December 9, 2012 by tsap seui (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Typically - just not in China.

 

If you find yourself in a Caca room of a Caca Hotel, try adding a cup of water to each open drain (floor and shower) and closing the sink drain.

 

Of course, not much you can do about a plastic pipe loosely stuffed into a floor drain pipe, or about any of the other rooms down the hall, but that should get you through the night.

[tsap seui]

Typically - just not in China.

 

If you find yourself in a Caca room of a Caca Hotel, try adding a cup of water to each open drain (floor and shower) and closing the sink drain.

 

Of course, not much you can do about a plastic pipe loosely stuffed into a floor drain pipe, or about any of the other rooms down the hall, but that should get you through the night.

 

I would be the last person to imply China had a plumbing code or anyone other than foreigners who gave a caca about the reason for sewer gas, just stating where and why you would use an S-trap as to a P-trap, it's all about space and a short tube of "trapped" water separating the sewer gas from the air in your home, or room.

 

I agree with closing off a floor drain in a hotel room but fail to understand a cup of water first. If the floor drain led into an underfloor trap in the first place there would be no problem in the first place, otherwise it's just gonna run on down the line with no trap to contain it....just sayin'.

 

Luckily for us, the only hotel we ever ran into sewer gas in was the one we got married in, and lil' rabbit found a contractor who understood traps, both above and below the floors, for our personal home.

 

To Fu Lai, just make sure the contractor traps out all your drains, both above and below the floor. Then this whole discussion will be a moot point, and you and yer lil' dahlin' won't be accussing each other of who made the horrible smellin' P when Chang Ching flushes his terlet on the 21st floor and sewer gas is blown into yer dinin' room. t

 

sap seui

Edited December 9, 2012 by tsap seui (see edit history)