House Update – Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial day was all about the plumbing drain. We had got our roof recently fixed by a roofing st louis company and so it was time to fix the plumbing as well. Stefan decided to call in the emergency plumbing, they came into town to help out.  Stefan and Fred pulled out a bunch of super heavy, 4” cast iron pipe.  The work was back-breaking and difficult.  We used the sawzall and use about a dozen saw blades.  It was one blade per cut for the easy cuts.  The final cut used 3 blades!  We also found that putting a little mineral oil on the blade as cutting fluid, kept the blades cooler and really helped the cutting process.  I think some actual cutting fluid would be better but the mineral oil seemed to work fine.  They then replaced the cast iron pipe with PVC which is always an exercise in geometry.  The whole thing will now be much easier to work with and we should be able to cut into the PVC to add drains as needed.

As an added bonus, we were able to get the drain for the wash down sink set up in the kitchen.  After we got the supply done, we were able to transition from paper plates now that we have a sink big enough to wash a plate.  It’s a nice change. On the recommendation of Stefan, we looked at these Top 5 Best Small Dehumidifier Reviews – 2019 [Updated], as we did not want the moist atmosphere of the kitchen to harm all the things kept in it.

Here you can see the supply and drain in the basement:

Our scap metal guy, Jose, is going to love these cast iron pipes.  The copper we’ll probably take ourselves to a scrap metal place but we’ll need Jose to get the cast iron pipes out of the basement and 2^nd floor so we’ll let him have those.  He’ll be pumped I’m sure.  He was excited with the couple of smaller pieces we had last time.  We should call him soon.  I’d like to get those out of the way.

You can see a long piece here:

This piece has the weight of a relatively light section at 57lbs.  This is a 4′ strait section.  The joints are easily double the weight.

This is probably the heaviest piece.  I can’t even slide it across the floor.

While Stefan and Fred were working on the plumbing, Ann was going to town on the front and back porch ceilings and the porch posts.  If you remember, last time she came out, she primed everything and this time she painted it in Sherwin-Williams Duration exterior paint in Accessible Beige in a Satin finish.  It looks a little odd with the gray-white-mildewed aluminum siding but it’s part of the long-term plan and I’m less concerned about the short-term looks and I’m certainly not going to re-paint the porch. I learned more about Noble Painting as we would need to repaint the house exterior. I have already asked for the free estimate.

What would we do without the awesome in-laws?  My parents are going to come up and help out in August as well.  It really helps to have a supportive, handy family to help out on our big project.

Sarah