Old toilet in Bellingham, WA

Here's a toilet that has become super rare, mostly because of the price of water. Or to quote Lake Whatcom Water & Sewer: "It's not the water that's expensive, it's the sewage charges you get when you use the water."

This toilet is in a house that's has a flat rate for usage because it doesn't have a water meter yet. By 2014, it will have a meter and you can bet this old toilet will be replaced real quick.

Anyway, this American Standard toilet was manufactured on January 31, 1935, as stamped in the lid. It's 78 1/2 years old.

Blaine, Wa garbage disposer

The tenant asks: What killed the garbage disposer?

Plumber says: ummmmm...talk to the owner.

Bellingham Wildlife

Plumbers encounter some dangerous critters in our travels around Whatcom County. These two are ferocious hunters that were stalking me in Sudden Valley and Fairhaven. Luckily, they gave me a pass.

In memory of Dianna Hanson 

Sudden Valley, Wa Water Pipe

This was a bad leak that made the water meter spin like crazy. After digging a new 150 foot ditch from the meter to the house, we never saw a drop of water from the leak. Sudden Valley---Whatcom County---has its peculiarities, to be sure.

Bellingham Rental

This job....well, look at the before and after pics to see the scope of the plumbing repair work.

Ball Plumbing works closely with rental owners and sometimes even property managers. With our plumbing hourly rate of $88.00 per hour plus parts, equipment and tax, we're a favorite with customers who have problem properties.

No, we didn't wash the dishes. They're stacked to the right, but if the owner requested we wash them, no problem here!

Before:

After:

Mt Vernon Wa toilet

Ball Plumbing works in Whatcom and Skagit Counties.

This toilet was one of 14 in a large industrial building that was being sold. The realtor wanted Ball Plumbing to repair it. Ball Plumbing wanted to run away.

We comprised and replaced the toilet.

Another Bellingham Water Shut-Off

The same builder must have done the Sudden Valley house (see Blog 6/27/13) because he used a gas valve instead of a full port water valve.

Not only does it cut the flow to this duplex, but look at the second picture. See the dirty water? That's from restricted flow! It cleared up after a few minutes at full pressure, but think of the poor water quality caused by poor workmanship.

Ball Plumbing's plumbers corrected all the problems, of course, for a lot less than you'd think for the amount of quality we gave.

Bellingham tub trap

The rusted tub trap is called a "saxophone trap", at least by me. They haven't been made for 50 years.

This sax trap has a leak at the bottom where the rust ate it up. We crawled under the house and using superior plumbing skills, were able to replace the trap with a new pvc trap.

The problem good plumbers have is that we make things look really easy. On this job, not only was it hard, but I whined like a dog after candy.

It got done, though.