H7HT Founders Vacation Tour

It All started with Clider.  Last year he was throwing away a buffet top that had been in his basement for years and was covered in layers of paint and grime.  I thought it would be perfect for my Sweetie, she loves layers of paint and grime, so I saved it from the dump and brought it home to my shed.  After months of seeing this thing every time I mowed the lawn I began thinking about the possibilities it had beyond holding yarn and sewing ‘notions’.  Maybe, I thought, it would be perfect for a bathroom vanity cabinet to put over the top of a converted dresser, you know, like they do on HGTV.  And so began The Bathroom Project.

Hunting season ended with a whimper.  Clider was clearly the ‘Expert’ and I was low on motivation to ski because if I’m skiing, I’m not getting paid.  So with the mountain closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays I started to refinish and repurpose the topper.  Soon after I bought an old dresser from the Goodwill and turned it into a sink and storage center with the topper making the system complete.  Along the way Fred G. heard about my project and asks why he has not been invited to help, after all, the two of us always are there to complicate each others projects, what else are best friends for.  I expand my plans to include a complete bathroom makeover with more square footage from tearing down the TV room closet and the hallway linen cabinet.  What could go wrong?  Right?

The weeks before Fred Gs vacation I tore out the TV room closet and replaced it with a new wall.  The linen cabinet was removed and now those extra square feet were created out of those spaces, and the far bathroom wall came down as well.  That wall contained the classy pink kitchen sink and kitchen faucet that served as our bathroom vanity.  It was all held together by a flimsy cabinet topped with a hunk of old kitchen counter.  Even with the wall gone and random plumbing and venting hardware sticking out of the floor it looked better than before.  With only the old nasty cast iron tub and the toilet in place it was time to tear down the outside walls and make the bathroom ‘al fresco’ to the rest of the house.  At this point I’m sure my Sweetie started to question my decision but little did she know the best was yet to come.

Fred G arrives and immediately we set to work by tearing out the tub and remaining walls, the flooring and the tile were next and a trip to the dump left the truck empty and ready to make the voyage to the Home Depot for all the things we needed.  We drank well that night with high hopes and great expectations of the ease of the project to come.  The next morning at the Depot Al the plumbing specialist hooked us up with all the things we needed to make the dream come true, my dream was to clear my head and be sure I didn’t forget anything, we left heavy with stuff.   Next on the agenda was the floor containing  the plumbing and drain lines from the old sink that now needed to be relocated 3 feet further forward.  No big deal in a regular home, but we live in a cabin made of logs, with a floor made of cement.  The first blade on the rented concrete saw did little work and ground down easily so the only option was the diamond tipped blade with usage and cost measured by a micrometer.  Lots of noise and dust accompanied our slow progress grinding through the 6 inches of burly 1950’s concrete until we had created a channel to the far wall and a square hole for the new bathtub drain.  I contemplated buying a big sledgehammer for the job of breaking up the floor but the former ‘Expert’ and co-creator of ‘The New Standard’  (H7HT blog post circa 2002, look it up) convinced me to rent the tool that goes between roto-hammer and jackhammer in the hammer lineage.  This 77 pound monster shook the whole foundation of the house as it slowly broke out the concrete of the floor into small chunks that Fred G pulled out one by one.  We gently exposed the galvanized pipe and drain that sat in the gravel layer under the main concrete slab.  I was a nervous wreck the whole time, The Whole Time!, because one small mistake could spell disaster.  Did I mention we don’t really know what we’re doing?

The next day the water went off for good.  We planned well the night before by eating Chinese food and drinking wikki and debating the merits of Fred’s new version of Backgammon that he created without any input from me, how good could it be?  So, with the water off and all our plans in place, I cut through the pipes with a sawsall.  Next we cut the massive cast iron drain pipe but had to go buy a blade called ‘The Torch’ because that cast iron stuff is tough!  Now with all the pipes out and our plans in place we started to put everything back together.  It went slowly.  Fred worked on finishing the electric installation and I worked the tub plumbing.  Al at Home Depot had sold us these connections for galvanized to galvanized piping that used a rubber washer and plastic housing that screw together and hold the pressure between the two disconnected pipes, we were using 6 of them.   The time had come to turn the water back on and check for leaks, tighten the system, and continue with the job of getting the tub and shower in.  The first one of Al’s plastic pieces of shit blew immediately, spraying water all over the furnace and water heater as well as the walls and floor.   Fred blamed the problem on incorrect installation (me) and reconfigured the plastic joiner.  I went to the street to turn the water on again.  The next one blew in seconds.  Since it was another one of my connections Fred again corrected my workmanship.  The third joiner never had a chance to blow as the yelling to “TURN IT OFF” reached me immediately.  Did I mention I was stressed?  At this point Fred worked on securing all the pipes and sent me to put the tub drain together.  I don’t know how often you put together a tub, but this is only my 2^nd one in 15 years.  Just some advice though, tub drains come from the back pipe that vents, not the spot of the actual drain on the base of the tub, not directly over the hole you had to jackhammer in the cement floor, but about 4 inches behind that hole.  Add overwhelming rage to my growing stress.  Time to rethink.

Extra, just in case

 Being the geniuses we are (or maybe I should take this blame) that I am, I cut the galvanized straight through.  In a perfect world we would have decoupled the pipes at the threaded ends and worked from there, but when pipes run under a concrete slab with no access you don’t really have that option.  That night we watched Youtube videos of people threading pipes.  They all started with a professional plumber putting the pipe in a large American Made vise.  The torque generated by the threaders meant it would be nearly impossible to thread the pipes in place and we had little idea of what to do.  The next day after looking at pipe threading options at the rental store and the local ACE hardware I decided the only thing to do was call a professional.  We worked out a system to reroute the tub drain and Fred completed the sink drain.  His vacation wearing down and his calm demeanor likely slipping away, he left for home and the rest of his vacation time.  He also needed a shower.  We all did.  I’m happy to report that upon his return he texted me that he let the water run in his sink till it was “real cold” before filling his ice tray, what a guy.  It would be several more days before we had that option at the cabin.

4 days later the plumber showed up.  I had to get back to work and they charge lots of dollars for weekend visits so we waited, without any running water, until Tuesday.  (At this point I have to give a huge thanks to Clider.  Upon seeing the situation we were in he insisted that my Sweetie and I shower in his fully functional bathroom facilities.  I even got a shave!  He loaned us a big water jug and me some pipe wrenches which came in handy later, showed me his massive pex water system and reassured me that it was no picnic for him to have to plumb his home either.)  I had been dumping Liquid Wrench on the crusty galvanized pipes of the shower where a threaded joint was accessible and using the pipe wrench was able to get them free. I set those up and bought a new shower assembly to go in.   When the plumber showed up his solution for the cut pipes was to superheat a piece of plastic line and slide it over the galvanized.  While it cooled he used two threaded collars in opposite directions to ‘strangle’ the plastic pipe and as it cooled it shrunk around the ole pipe.  I turned the water on and it held.  His cost was only $80 and I was happy to pay it.  I did however wait nervously for the next 3 days for the fix to blow up and I’m still somewhat scared to bury it altogether.  

With the water on but still no tub and shower in the bathroom I spent my Thursday putting the shower together.  The reconfigured and elevated tub drain seemed to work and all the plumbing was holding when the tub went in.  I spent a good amount of time moving some wall structure to make the shower walls fit properly and after I drilled and cut the holes for the tub fixtures I put them together only to realize that I cut holes in the wrong side.  Did I mention I’ve got some stress issues?  That night I had only my 2^nd shower in 10 days.  The water was lukewarm.