A water detector in the basement will save you a major headache — unless you’re not home to hear it. Leave on vacation for a week, and you could come home to a dead battery in your water detector, thousands of dollars of water damage, and a floating sofa. Like your basic water detector, a backup sump pump sounds a nice little alarm, but it also does something about the problem.

This pump from Wayne will sit quietly, charging a deep-cycle battery, until the power goes out and the water rises. Then the ESP25 system sounds an alarm and begins pumping water at up to 3,300 gallons per hour at zero feet, and over 1,000 GPH at 15 feet. It may not handle a full hurricane, but it should save you from most flooding problems.  At $220, it might pay for itself with reduced home insurance premiums alone.

Backup Sump Pump [Wayne]
Wayne [Corporate Site]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

Amazon’s offering another deal/steal, this time on the Lenox 10-piece plumber’s hole saw set, for $33 with free shipping. The set includes six bi-metal saws in sizes 3/4″, 7/8″, 1-1/8″, 1-1/2″, 1-3/4″, and 2-1/4″, which are the most common sizes in plumbing applications. It also comes with a plastic case, two arbors, an arbor adapter, and a pilot drill. Lenox welds the high-speed, steel teeth to a spring steel backing — their patented bi-metal technology means a longer life for your saws.

Lenox [Corporate Site]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Wiha’s narrow-profile pipe wrenches fit into places a normal pipe wrench couldn’t reach, even after a crash diet. With three different lengths and three different jaw styles, one of these nine wrenches is bound to do the job.

Wiha forges their narrow-profile pipe wrenches from high-quality CV tool steel, and they induction-harden the jaws for durability and long life. Self-clamping, raked, and serrated jaws grab the pipe without slippage and adjust quickly with the rapid-adjust nut.

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When you need to know the rise and run now, don’t calculate it — directly measure it quickly with Tajima’s slant tool. Their slant tool allows you to quickly measure, verify, or copy surface angle and pitch.

You adjust the easy-to-read angle scale with a large thumb screw on the handle. When the bubble vial reads level, you’re at the set angle. The angle scale ranges from 0 to 130° in 2° increments. The rise scale ranges from 0 to 0.8 in 0.05 increments, and above 0.8 it reads in fixed increments up to 2.0.

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Usually when you’re cutting copper pipe with a tubing cutter, you’ve got to have a good deal of space around the pipe. Not only do you need a few inches for every swing, but you have to adjust the cutter as you rotate. It all adds up to a time- and space-consuming process. Superior Tools, a plumbing tool manufacturer, offers an alternative — the Ultracut Cordless Tubing Cutter.

The Ultracut can cut 1/2″ and 3/4″ copper tubing in just a few seconds.  Its design allows it to reach into spots that a normal tubing cutter or saw couldn’t reach.  Simply set the cutter to the appropriate size, snap the cutter head onto the pipe, and let it rip. The cutter will stop as soon as the cut’s complete.

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Although flare connections are very reliable, people don’t use ‘em as often as they could because creating them requires special equipment. Fortunately, you really don’t have to make a huge investment in tools — General Tools manufactures an inexpensive flaring tool to get you started making solid flare connections. Their flaring tool makes smooth 45° flares in soft copper, aluminum, brass, and other common, thin-walled tubing.

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When a pipe wrench just won’t cut it — whether it just can’t get a good grip or won’t fit in the given space — grab your trusty chain wrench. A chain wrench wraps around hard-to-reach or irregularly shaped objects to give you the grip you need.

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Ridgid Tools starts the year off with an interesting promotion for cleaning your pipes — a “buy one, get one” deal with products at multiple price points. At the bottom end, when you buy a sink machine for around $300, you get a free toilet auger with a street price of around $50. If you’re in the trade, you might want to invest in some of the pricier items — buy a $4,000 water jetter and you get a free SeeSnake micro inspection camera, with a street price of around $200. With so many choices, your pipes will gleam in 2008.

2008 Spring Fling Drain Cleaning Promo [Ridgid]

You might be a strong man that can bend iron bars, but are you gentle enough to bend soft tubing? Even if you’re careful, it’s all too easy to kink soft tube, and once you do that you can’t bend it back. Spring tubing benders allow you to put complex curves into brass, copper, and soft metal tubing without worrying about kinks.

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Did you know that Stanley makes FatMax 10″ Groove Joint PushLock pliers? Despite their resemblence to Irwin’s GrooveLock pliers, these FatMax pliers incorporate a few features that may be enough reason to add a pair to your collection.

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The Jet Swet system allows you to swet/solder on a copper line without draining the entire water system. (I really wish I’d heard about this before I re-routed all the copper lines in my basement.) Just insert the Jet Swet through the valve or pipe and compress the Jet Swet gasket to instantly shut off the water. It’ll hold back up to 65 pounds of water pressure — plenty if you’re in an established neighborhood. (Be careful if you’re in a new-build; they often boost the pressure in anticipation of the development filling up later.)

The 6100 kit comes with six tools in sizes 1/2, 3/4, 1, 1-1/4, 1-1/2, and 2″, all housed in a plastic carrying case. And Accent Shopping carries them right now for $225.

Jet Swet 6100 [Brenelle]
Jet Swet 6100 [Accent Shopping]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

Ever had to stop a plumbing project because you broke a threaded nipple off inside a fitting? As often is the case, there’s a very specific tool designed to save your ass in this instance: for a few bucks you can snag an internal pipe wrench, which locks into the stub with an eccentric mechanism and backs it right out.

It saves not only the cost of a new fitting, but also the time and hassle of tearing everything apart. Street pricing hovers around $5.

Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s this?]

Tired of tearing your hands up on cheap-ass, not-fully-smoothed cast faucet knobs? You could replace the faucet with an expensive modern one, but if the valve’s still good, why not try Faucet Mitts? Just soften these rubber covers in warm water then just slip ‘em into place. They’re four bucks a pair and are way, way easier on your hands.

Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s this?]

If you’ve ever wanted to see a Ridgid specialty tool firsthand before ordering it, you may soon get your wish. According to Ridgid’s website, all you have to do is select the products you want to see in action, and they’ll send over a representative with the tools.

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The next time you’re in the hardware store, look for multi-purpose brushes in the plumbing section. These 4″ tin-handled brushes are commonly known as “flux” or “acid” brushes, and you can use them to spread pastes, greases, and liquids — almost any basic brushing task. And they’re cheap enough to throw away if when they get nasty.

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I love taking an absurdly long hot shower after spending a day in the shop.  I can do so because the people who built my house expected a bunch of kids to live here, and they installed two big-ass hot water heaters.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that I’m shelling out cash to keep 110 gallons of water hot all the time, even when I’m out of town. 

Rheem’s tankless water heaters sound like a better answer.  Through the use of a very efficient heat exchanger, they heat quickly enough to provide a continuous supply of hot water on demand, meaning I keep my long showers and pay less for my gas bill.  Did I mention some of them qualify for a $300 tax credit, too?

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