Plumbing nightmares

The complete remodel of the half bathroom has been a great challenge and learning experience. Needless to say I am not ready to quit my day job, but there is something satisfying about doing the work yourself. Many of our friends and family always seem to have complaints about how a contractor did a job differently from what they were asked to do. It is this very reason that we have decided to do many of our home improvement projects ourselves.

The biggest plumbing problem with the half bathroom prior to the remodel was the cast-iron radiator. This thing was old, rusty, smelly and unsightly. Removing it was a gift and a curse. Once it was removed we gained significant space in the room but then we were left to install a new heating element. Since the whole house has baseboard heat with force-hot-water, we decided to replace the big heavy radiator with a small 2 foot section of baseboard heating element with the small aluminum plates. This heating element takes up little space and can provide a good heat source for a small area.

After we installed all of the bead board, trim and baseboard; the toilet (which took 2 tries to get right) and the sink(which took a day to figure out. Pedestal sinks are trickier than you think) it was time to tackle the heat. There is one thing that I had wished I had not done for the heating. When we installed the floor I decided to drill holes for the heating pipes, where they originally were, prior to polyurethaning the floor. The theory was that we would work around the heating element, but when it came time to put the heating system together it became clear that the original setup was poorly executed and difficult to work with.

It took me a good day to figure out how I would get the pipes installed without burning the house down. The main problem is that the heating pipe actually comes out of a small whole in the wall which is not big enough work in and definitely not safe enough to sweat (solder) copper connections. Because of this space constraint I was forced to put together as much of the heating pipes so that I would only have to solder a few connections in the basement and avoid the dangerous hole in the wall. Because of my work schedule I had to do this work over the span of a few days and each night I would have anxiety dreams about plumbing. If you have every seen the screen saver that has the pipes running in all different directions and multiplying at an alarming rate, image dreaming that with a real project which you have to wake up to and deal with.

After much preparation I had decided to go ahead and put together the heating system once and for all. I started working at about 6pm and finished at about 12:30am. After sweating many connections, running out of solder, making a trip to Lowes just minutes before they closed to get more solder, and finishing the remaining connections, the heating system was finally ready to be tested. In my excitement I turned up the thermostat and waited for heat to come, but it never did. At 1:30am I gave up and went to bed. I still had the plumbing nightmare that night which was unsettling because I had just worked so hard to get the job done.

In the morning I gave the heating system another test and within minutes I heard the unmistakable hiss of water leaking out of a faulty connection. To my dismay it was in the one spot that I could not fix easily. It was a disappointing moment and for the first time I felt like I could have paid someone to deal with the problem and be done with it, but I knew that I could fix it myself. To fix the problem I had to take apart about 50% of the work I had done the night before and go out and buy some special copper fittings that do not require solder. These fittings push together and hold tight. I decided to go with this system because I could not image re-sweating connections only to have another leak.

The new system finally works without any leaks, yet I am still haunted by plumbing nightmares...I think it will be some time before we tackle another plumbing project!