a plumbing day

[low_delta]

My friend Bill came over so I could help him fix my plumbing. Well, not really fix it - just make it better.

This old house has had many plumbing work done in the last ninety years. Less than that really, since it didn't have indoor plumbing when it was built. So it has had many changes and additions over the years. There were pipes running everywhere. Strangely, all of the pipes still were connected to the main. They all still had water in them, even though they were dead ends.

Bill came over at 10:30, and finally finished up at 4:30. That was later than he had hoped because he had other things to do, but the job went smoothly. Today we replaced all the cold water feeds. We rerouted the supplies to the water heaters, replaced a lot of galvanized steel pipes with copper, put in some shutoff valves and tore out a lot of just plain excess piping. I didn't actually do any soldering, but I watched closely and he told me all he knew about it, so I think I can do it.

After Bill had left, I talked with Cyn for a while, and then went back down to do some cleanup work. After a little bit I heard a tik tik tik. Something was dripping! Before I got the water turned off it had developed into a spray. So I called Bill back. He wasn't able to come until after 7:00, and it took us four tries and forty five minutes to fix the leak. It was in the middle of a line (and was above the shutoffs), which is kind of difficult to get at. The T coupling that was leaking was right at a joist, so the torch kept setting the joist aflame. We kept saying, "the house is on fire!" That was usually followed by, "the house is out," as one of us would blow it out.

That whole thing was frustrating, but it is nice to have it fixed (and it's not even done yet). It's nice to get (part one of) a major project done.

Comments

Plumber talk'

[cherie.livejournal.com]

Your post reminded me of my old house and the 1989 EQuake we had in Calif. When the dust settled and I went in the next day the toilet had completely jumped off it's base and I could look down the hole to the basement. It was really wierd. A volunteer plumber came out to help us have a toilet the next day and after he left something wasn't right. It appeared the main sewer line to the street had completely broke in half and the basement was filling up with sewage. It was another couple days before I could get someone back out, what a mess.

So I understand how you must feel to get a major part of your project done. :)

Re: Plumber talk'

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Wow, that must have sucked. I can only imagine the trouble I'd have if something catastrophic broke - as opposed to one little leak in a pipe.

[banana.livejournal.com]

..."the house is on fire!" ... usually followed by, "the house is out,"...
"Usually"?
8~)

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it was just, "oh. thanks." after the flame was blown out. : )

[banana.livejournal.com]

"The house is on fire!" was usually followed by "the house is out." But occasionally we were so sick of the whole project that we'd let it burn for a while. That's how we lost the west wing in '97, but this time the timbers were too wet from the leaking pipes, and it kept dying down. All we got was a few lungfulls of joist smoke and a couple of creaky boards when we'd put everything back.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

:-D

[cynnerth.livejournal.com]

LOL!!