Plumb Tired

Monday morning Adam shut off the main water to the house and took a hack saw to the galvanized steel supply lines that ran to the kitchen sink.  He worked hard all day under the house trying to loosen the threads of the pipes so we could tie in our extensions.  We went to Ace and Adam picked up a propane torch to heat up the the pipes and hopefully loosen up the pipe dope that had been aging for 65+ years. It took almost all of Tuesday to loosen the pipes, with much banging.  Then we drilled holes for the new supply pipes and attached the new soft copper tubing to the old galvanized pipe with some dialectric unions.  In hindsight some hilarity ensued that Tuesday night as we tried to flare our copper pipe so that it would fit into the compression joints I got at Lowes. 

It wasn't until Wednesday morning when I went to Home Depot that someone explained to me that there are three ways to join copper tubing, sweating, compression, and flaring.  We were working with some oddly sized pipe copper nom. 3/8" o.d. 1/2" and most of the fittings we got were 5/8"!  So of course it wasn't working, we didn't even have the right size fittings!  While Adam was at work on Wednesday I got the correct size fittings and trekked under the house to replace the odd size ones.  It had snowed early that morning, so instead of the regular discomforts of being six months pregnant I got to add being six months pregnant, covered in snow and scooting in the pitch dark crawl space under our house.  It really wasn't that bad and in time for my job interview I had the odd couplings switched out.  I switched out the push-fit valves for some threaded brass valves.  When Adam got home we flipped on the main water and sure enough there were leaks in almost every place possible. That night Adam was swept with a stomach flu and called into work sick Thursday.  And although he was sick, he is a wonderful man and worked on the plumbing with me anyway.  We tweaked some things and slathered some pipe thread compound.  The compound instructions said it took 48 hours to set, in a water-free environment. 

We waited until Sunday to test the pipes and when we did there were still a couple of leaking couplings.  After another trip to the hardware store to get some fresh compression sleeves we reassembled the compression joints one more time and were met with success!  Only a week of no water and we successfully did our own plumbing.

On Thursday while Adam worked on the plumbing I went to Lumber Liquidators (301 sq. ft. for $1.49/sq. ft.) and picked up the Nirvana laminate we had on order for our dining room and kitchen. On Saturday my sister-in-law Bethany took Millie off my hands so I could focus on laying the flooring. 

I was able to lay the dining room and then Adam and his dad finished the kitchen.  We finished with only one board to spare. 

 

With the floor laid the boys were able to bring in the new fridge and range.  And then the cabinets were delivered.  This week the kitchen is really coming alive.  Before we had to imagine what it would look like but now its really coming together.