manleyhouse: (Default)
manleyhouse ([personal profile] manleyhouse) wrote2006-01-09 10:05 am
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Basement progress.

Earlier in the week I got a few of the kick-plates trimmed down and installed in the kitchen, there are a few more to do but now I know that my new-to-me bandsaw works well.

Then there was a lot of changes made in the basement over the weekend. (several pics in the cuts)

Saturday:
Got up about 9:30am and just got dressed when my dad arrived to drop off a load of stuff in the garage (it is getting rather congested now.) I was still getting ready when I heard my phone beep. Voicemail, from work. So I went in to work till about noon and then went back home to help my dad with the things we were going to work on this weekend. He already had most of the mystery drain (we think it is an RV drain somewhere by the driveway.) and shelving removed so I helped in finishing that. It will be a drain for a washing machine that is to be placed up on the shelf after it is extended, and a new washer is purchased.

Then we got to clearing out the space where we wanted to put in a shower. I got the salt tank for the water softener moved around to the other side of the mechanical room and re-connected, then we took out the little dividing wall next to the toilet so we could more accurately measure the space and figure out how much space we actually had to work with.


After some measuring and picture drawing it was time to go to Menards. [livejournal.com profile] alyska came with to see the tub that I was thinking about for upstairs and to have veto over shower stall and hardware. Well, turns out there was enough room down there for the 34" stall that I liked that was in stock rather than having to go for the 31" that was more expensive and a special order. [livejournal.com profile] alyska liked it so we got it, last one in stock. We also picked out the plumbing control hardware.

Then it was home to figure how to get the plumbing under the shower without having to break concrete. My dad had brought down a chunk of cast iron pipe that had a 2" tee in it. so we cut the main drain stack to fit that in as close to the ground as we could and still get the adapter on a straight section of pipe. Power hacksaws are fun. We also cut a section out higher up to rotate it so the clean-out access was facing the other way and not into the back of the planned shower wall.



The shower base was stronger than we were anticipating, it felt like it was nice and sturdy in the store on just a sheet of plywood and after getting it home it was, so we figured we could just make a platform with a 3/4" treated plywood top instead of pouring a pad of concrete. This made me happy, and made the more expensive shower stall worth it. After figuring out how high we needed to get the base of the shower we went back to Menards for materials for the base and for the new walls.

We got most of the wall framing up by about 1am and then decided to get some sleep.


Sunday:
Then it was up Sunday morning to get the rest of the studs up and plan the supply plumbing. We found where we needed to have the controls to fit in the flat spot of the contoured stall wall. Then we figured where we could tap into the copper leading to and from the water heater, which is sitting just behind where the stall is. After more sketches a trip to Menards for copper pipe, fittings and pipe sweating kit we started in on that.

We got everything together up until the final connection to the supply lines and then shut off the water and cut them to get in the T connectors.
Once those were soldered in it was the moment of truth, would it leak? luckily it didn't and all was good. Once that was done, the water controls were in place so we could measure for cutting out the holes in the drywall. The drywall (greenboard) went up and the adapter fit in perfectly. Then we solvented in the shower trap and plugged it for now. Then it was time to do some cleanup and for my dad to head home. Then it was shower upstairs and sleep.





(updated by [livejournal.com profile] jeffreyp)

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