True Plumbing Stories

No post yesterday because we were very busy. HL and a co-plumber showed up at 8 am yesterday morning. They tore out the ceiling where they thought the lines most likely ran. Apparently, this house did not originally have plumbing going to the bathroom. There may have been a tub and wash basin upstairs, but someone had to carry water to it. HL guesses that there was an outhouse out back. I find this very surprising, but the facts are that the "original" plumbing was installed after the house was built as evidenced by some jerry-rigged custom pipage running through the diningroom ceiling. In an enormous effort to prevent ripping up our newly tiled bathroom floor, HL and friend painstakingly chiseled through 3" thick rough hewn planks that make up the structure of this house to create an area wide enough for the PVC pipes to run through. Another fun fact about our house: they found a RAT NEST. No rats in it, thank god. Apparently, they had been feeding off of a leaky pipe. Suddenly I had a flashback to last year. That must be the water source that the exterminator was talking about. The place where the mice would run to while their insides were bleeding. The rat nest was made up of pink insulation...the same stuff that is all over the place in our attic. Eeeww??? Are there MICE up there too???

HL and the co-plumber did not leave until 6:30 PM. They only replaced the drain pipes where there was leakage. They did not replace the pipes that bring water to the bathroom. That is another job and a whole lot of money. We are thinking about going ahead and replacing all of our water lines all the way down to the street. HL and I went to the basement to look at the pipe works down there. To quote HL, "its a mess and a plumber's $$$ dream come true." There are pipes epoxied together, pipes running to nowhere, pipes for gas lines where we don't have appliances. I think that I mentioned the asbestos before too. HL then notified me that our water heater and I share the same birth year. To update the plumbing will cost a mini-fortune. HL is going to call us with a quote on Monday. Until we make a final decision about replacing the remaining plumbing, that hole in the ceiling is going to be with us for awhile.

After the plumbers left, I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned up the dust and plaster particles. There still is a lot more cleaning to do [I caught Theo trying to eat a stray chunk of plaster this morning], but it looks a lot better. Today, I finally applied Jamaican Aqua paint to the bathroom walls. I also finished spackling and attempted to scrub out the tubbie so that bubbies can play in there tomorrow.

By popular demand, I may post a new video tomorrow. Stay tuned!!