Sunday, February 7, 2010

Splish Splash

After staying up into the wee hours of the morning to get the shower pan installed, our plumber arrived bright and early. 

Derek was quite nice and let me stay in bed for a few hours while he was up after a mere 4 hours of sleep to oversee the plumbing job.

I have to say though, those extra 2 hours of sleep I was allowed were not the most restful, as all I could hear was the sounds of a drywall saw cutting up walls.  When I finally emerged from our room, this is what I saw in one of our guest rooms.

 

Holes in the wall, wood chips and insulation everywhere!  In order to properly vent the new drain lines in the bathroom, the plumber had to go up through the back wall of the bathroom and drill through the top plate of that wall, then up through the bedroom wall, through that top plate, and connect in with the current vent line in the attic.

 
That`s the attic.  Fun yellow insulation.

When he was here the first time, the plumber made our main vent stack a thing of beauty.  45° Y`s, and a whole lot more connections, but everything is now at or above code, which is how we roll.  Wanna see the new stack?  Of course you do!

 

Derek giggled all the first night about something the plumber said when he was first taking apart the stack.  "Oh, look, there's some debris".  Derek's called poop "debris" since then.
Here's a bit of the mess of fittings that were part of the process.

 
Yes, we use a snow shovel to pick up construction destruction garbage.

So what did all this mess get us?  New plumbing for a sink, a toilet drain that's now a reasonable distance from the back wall, and plumbing for a brand spanking new shower!

 
Sink plumbing! (with new vent)

 
Shower plumbing!
Our main decision now is whether or not we want to keep the plumbing in for the "toe tester".  Basically, the drain near that bottom.  You can use it to test the water temperature with your toe (hence the name) and then use it to drain the water out of the line when you turn the shower off.  As of right now, we think that due to the limited size of the shower, we might keep it out, but the plumber advises to keep it in.  

What do you guys think?  Does your shower stall have a toe tester?  Should we keep it, or ditch it?

Next time, lights!

1 comment:

  1. Hey Raynes, It's Mel66 off theknot!

    We are working on doing a bathroom reno at our house too! I like how much planning you are doing and how you get to pick the size of your room and everything.
    We had a pre framed bathroom and we totally gutted and are rebuiling. Our shower is now in... we did one of those shower kits from Home Depot, it looks pretty sweet actually. Way bigger then the shower we had down there before (it's the basement bathroom). Long story short, we opted to put a "toe tester" in. Andrew likes it better, we didn't have one before, and he wanted one.

    Hope that helps! :)

    ReplyDelete