I started on the vent lines for the waste part of the plumbing. The vent lines go up from each fixture (sink, tub, shower, and toilet), get linked together and daylight through the roof. Not rocket science, but new enough for me that I'm only making glacial speed in terms of progress. Finished the master bath this afternoon and Bob (Snowboard) Brown came by to check on me (I call, he bills at $70/hr to look, fix, or advise). I don't call often. I had it all right except an upside down sanitary tee. Now you ask, just what the hell is a sanitary tee (femine health product, golf product for the germophobic golfer, etc). Well its a pipe that makes a T intersection, but sweeps to one side or the other so that the little turds or hairballs slide through and don't get lodged there, hence the term "sanitary." Don't fool yourself, there's nothing sanitary about a waste system.This weekend I'll take a whack at the upstairs waste lines, which involve 4 devices: Shower (1.5" line), sink (1.5" line), bath tub (1.5" line), and toilet (3" line). The downstream path is Sink joins the Toilet line (main line). That line goes under the floor within joist space, then turns and dives down to the soffit in the family room. After about 10 ft it is joined by the secondary (feed) line which starts at the shower and joins the bath tub. After waste is collected from these four devices into the master (3") line, it goes about 5 ft then dives straight down (call this Mr. Twister's Turd Ride) past the first floor and into the crawl space. From there it goes 25 ft S at 1/4" per foot (the magical drop rate, see Day 26 blog) and exits the house, hopefully. If your karma is correctly adjusted, all will function well. However I wonder about the Coriolis Effect (see Wikipedia) and whether waste turns right better than left in the northern hemisphere. None of our lines go North, and most go South, so only time will tell. Perhaps one of my mechanically oriented colleagues (like Yogi) can shed some light on this problem.
After all the vent lines are complete, I'll concentrate on the real waste lines, starting from top to bottom. Maintaining a proper grade is the key point, plus making sure you use a long sweep (radius) junction when waste is entering one line from another. Also, two 45° bends are better than one 90° bend; less chance of a chunky bit hanging up.
When all the vent and waste lines are finished (end of March?) well cap all the open lines and pressure test the system by filling it with water through the uppermost vent (second story roof). This will be a low pressure test, but any leaks will become quickly apparent. If so, out comes the pipe saw, new fittings, and cement. The good thing about ABS pipe is its easy to install and rip out, and relatively cheap, so there is no reason to get your undies in a knot over this stuff.
After we clear the pressure test well go on to the domestic water supply, which will be much like the PEX work I did in January. I bought the magical PEX expansion tool so its just a simple matter of mapping out the supply line routes, drilling a couple hundred holes and pulling the pipe: red for hot and blue for cold. More on this later. I'm off to Los Alamos National Laboratory to make sure the place doesn't leak plutonium like a sieve in the next big earthquake on the Parajito fault zone.
After all the vent lines are complete, I'll concentrate on the real waste lines, starting from top to bottom. Maintaining a proper grade is the key point, plus making sure you use a long sweep (radius) junction when waste is entering one line from another. Also, two 45° bends are better than one 90° bend; less chance of a chunky bit hanging up.When all the vent and waste lines are finished (end of March?) well cap all the open lines and pressure test the system by filling it with water through the uppermost vent (second story roof). This will be a low pressure test, but any leaks will become quickly apparent. If so, out comes the pipe saw, new fittings, and cement. The good thing about ABS pipe is its easy to install and rip out, and relatively cheap, so there is no reason to get your undies in a knot over this stuff.
After we clear the pressure test well go on to the domestic water supply, which will be much like the PEX work I did in January. I bought the magical PEX expansion tool so its just a simple matter of mapping out the supply line routes, drilling a couple hundred holes and pulling the pipe: red for hot and blue for cold. More on this later. I'm off to Los Alamos National Laboratory to make sure the place doesn't leak plutonium like a sieve in the next big earthquake on the Parajito fault zone.
