Wasted and vented, thank god (Day 179 of 273)

Its Sunday morning and I'm going over to the Church of the Holy ABS (not abstinence). Two more waste pipes to connect and this house will be able to transport a substantial waste unit (i.e. turd) from one of our three toilets to the perimeter of the house. Don't worry, we'll connect the whole shebang to the septic system when it gets built out in the summer (almost the last thing done).

I've learned a few lessons and fixed my screwups when Bob Brown (plumber) has been gracious enough to point them out. In the last couple of weeks I've been finding my own mistakes, and caught them in the layout stage so there hasn't been too much cutting and patching. Two things fooled me early on. 1) Tight bends are allowed only on vents (its only gas), so on fluids you use moderate bends (sweeps) for going down and long sweeps for going flat or changing direction horizontally. 2) Sinks are different than vanities wash basins. Sinks carry solid waste (coffee grounds, vegetable matter, etc), but wash basins are just for gray water, unless your cat has taken to shitting in them. In that case you need to train them to use the toilets. So for sinks the vertical exit lines are 2" pipe rather than 1.5". This caused me some grief and ripouts. As I've said in the past, the ABS pipe is cheap and what's time to a pig (a Pete Rowlyism). But that's all gray water under the bridge, as they say.

I finished plumbing the ultimate man-feature, a urinal for the garage. So you can build kayaks or do other projects all day long, drink beer, and never have to leave the garage (or enter the feminine sanctuary of the house) to take a leak. I suspect its the best $175 I've ever spent.

It was a mild day, so late in the afternoon Nancy and I had a picnic (wine and appetizers) on the beach. Four minutes from the house and we saw the bald eagles that nest there. Nancy's taken a liking to them, perhaps more than to me.