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It is not air in the pipes.
You have either a faulty shut-off valve to the toilet which needs to be relaced or you have a faulty fill valve in the toilet.
Either way they need to be changed.
Although Pa Law generally requires a seller to fully disclose any known material defect by the seller to the buyer, there are many exceptions to this rule by which no disclose is required to be made.
You can see the Pennsylvania Real Estate Disclosure Staute here:
Some real estate sales/transfers that require no disclosure include:
-transfers pursuant to a court order
-transfers of a probabte court
-transfers made during a bankruptcy
-transfers made via eminent domain
-transfers resulting from a defaulted mortgage
-transfers to the beneficiary of a deed trust
-transfers during foreclosure
-transfers under the sale of a foreclosure
-transfers from one owner to another
-transfers where the owner has never occupied the propertyEtc…
Yours may be a situation where no disclosure was required under State law.
There are several wax free toilet seals made specifically for this purpose and they are readily available at home improvement centers or plumbing supply stores.
One is the Fernco wax free toilet seal:
http://www.fernco.com/FTS.html
The other is the FluidMaster Wax Free Bowl Gasket:
http://www.fluidmaster.com/connect_products_7500.html
Each costs less than $10US
You had smoke before the fan?
Or smell smoke because of the fan?
Or do you just have a ‘burning smell’ coming from the fan?
What brand fan?
Light kit attached to fan?
???????????
Where do you live?
Is your basement insulated?
Concrete floor? Dirt?Ceiling of basement insulated?
Walls insulated?
Floor insulated?
Will these new window panels open?
Too many unanswered questions…but a few observations:
1. An unheated basement may qualify as ‘conditioned space’ and may be required to be finished as your State Code requires.
2. Claiming you live in a rural area does not necessarily disqualify you from conforming to your State sanctioned building codes since most US States have Statewide building codes nowadays regardless of how they are locally enforced.
3. Generally speaking, polyethylene plastic sheets should never be used in the framed walls of a basment.
4. Anytime kraft paper faced insulation is used it MUST be covered by gypsum drywall or similar because it is a fire hazard.
5. Open ‘backside’ open walls of non-combustable framing still need to be enclosed for fireblocking reasons.
6. Fire and Draft-blocking reauirements still apply.
Depends entirely upon your building code and what existing rooms or living space are within your basement.
Generally speaking, if your basement has inhabitable space or bedrooms, you may not be able to install these types of windows at all.
For a basement with habitable space or bedrooms, you may need to install specifically designed emergency access and egress windows based upon criteria established by your lcoal building code.
Until you consult your code, we cannot help.
For a house 4 years old the good news is that your waste lines are likely 4″ PVC schedule 40.
This should mean that your problem lies with an imporperly glues joint or a joint that someone forget to glue with PVC solvent.
If so, the fix does require digging to expose the leaking joint, but often a swipe around the coupling with a bit of solvent will seal it up permanently.
If the joint has completely pulled away from the coupling or if there is another type of problem requiring cutting the pipe, a Fernco rubber coupling is usually used to make the repair.
See http://www.fernco.com for types of 4″ sewer pipe couplings.
But you may also find that the sewer/waste pipe works just fine and the leakage is only the result of groundwater enetering the basmement thru an improperly sealed pipe thru the foundation.
In that case, hydraulic cement around the exiting sewer pipe may solve the dilemma.
A sump pump is designed to keep rises in the water table from getting above finished floor height in a basement or crawlspace.
Sump pumps are normally only installed where the finished floor of the basement or crawlspace is below the existing outside grade.
If the finished floor of the crawlspace or basement is above the existing grade, no sump pump is required.
However, even with a crawlspace or basement that sits above existing grade, you still need to treat the crawl or basement floor with at the very least a single layer of 6 mil polyethylene sheet plastic sealed at the edges and seams to keep out water vapor from the soil below AND you may still need to treat the floor of the crawl or basement with a minimum of 4″ of concrete to mitigate Radon infiltration (among other things)…
An 1885 roof is about 20 years past it’s projected lifespan and the already in place “repairs” have rendered any other “repairs” useless.
Time to replace the roof with something both as beautiful and functional as the original.
If you are using kraft paper faced insulation and install the paper according to the manufacturer, you must lap the paper over the face of the studs and cannot therefore use adhesive.
Screwing the drywall, as LarryG mentioned, can produce a hung drywall sheet that meets code and is actually superior to nailing and gluing.
