Another OT Plumbing question

Rich Kontny_3

We had a customer whose ancient softener cracked a piece of the distributor piping off and moved the media into the house cold water sytem. The water heater acted as a dirt trap but all the cold lines were packed with the media up to the outlets.

We ended up changing faucet cartridges etc. The toughest fixtures to clear out were the toilets with their Fluidmaster fill valves. Imagine your piping filled with abot 40# of coffee grounds (about the same consistancy)

Rich

Big Al

I re-commissioned a second floor bathroom

in our 90 year old house. The previous owner (an elderly widow) never went upstairs and obviously never used the bathroom there. The galvanized plumbing is in questionable shape, but I have other things to fix before I have the time to replace it.

The diaphragm-style fill valve on the new toilet I installed gets stuck open once in a while. I take it apart and pick out the particles of rust and it's good for a few weeks. I'm not sure how many times that plastic valve will survive disassembly.

Until I re-pipe, is there some sort of little strainer/screen/filter I can put in the supply line to intercept the rust? Any preferred brand or style?

Or should I try to find an old fashioned direct-acting brass ballcock that will pass chunks?

Rich Kontny_3

I would

Use a wye strainer (the type they use in front of a commercial icemaker) that way you can have it in line and clean it out periodically.

Rich K.

Brad White

Yup. Easy.

Wye strainers are a good call. I always install them upstream of dishwashers or anything with "sensitive internals". Makes sense for the condition you have, too.

Larry Weingarten

Another option...

... not necessarily better, just different, is to throttle down the angle stop to slow filling. This way you're less likely to dislodge rusty bits. Or, run the connector into a bucket and let 'er rip. This could flush out those rusty bits.

Yours, Larry

Big Al

Thanks!

I throttled the supply valve way back. It's a 1.6 GPF toilet, so it still doesn't take very long to refill the tank. If the fill valve plugs again, I'll put in a strainer.