(Editor’s Note: Just as Gaul was divided so neatly into three parts, so was The Gimlet’s successful foray into plumbing. Veni, vidi, Vanguard!)
The plumbing has been completed. The final switch over took about seven hours. In the morning I hung the ¾” tubing between where the water supply comes into the house and the Manabloc. I then put the pex tubing and flex copper tubing in place for the water heater. It was now time to shut off the water and make the switch. I cut the galvanized pipe over the shut off valve and then used a couple of pipe wrenches to remove the pipe from the valve. After a little bit of Teflon tape and putting in a pex adapter I was ready to crimp some pex rings.
There was one moment of panic when, after attaching the water heater to the Manabloc and turning on the water, the tubing into the Manabloc popped off. Water went everywhere until I ran to the main valve and turned it off. Quick work reattaching the tubing and tightening it and the other tubing down better took care of that problem.
Everything after this was simply moving from one fixture to the next and switching from the galvanized system valves to the pex valves. About this time, my father-in-law came by to see if I had completely messed it up.
At the showers, which had been converted to copper piping prior to our purchase of the house, I had to sweat (solder) some connectors. This was a new skill that I only had read about. I had the tools and the first three went very easily. When I noticed and mentioned that putting the connecters directly where I had to cut the pipe would not give me room to use the pex crimp tool, my father-in-law suggested I solder two or three feet of copper tubing to the cut portion and then attach the connecter below. Greeting this as the solution to the problem, I made the trip to the home improvement store to purchase two copper connectors. Upon my return, your normal narrator and Thing One were recruited to hold the tubing and a flashlight while I soldered. After putting on the safety gear (oven mitt and eye protection) the soldering was completed and every fixture in the house worked, but one. (Editor’s Note: Yes, this would have been a choice photo moment, but we were all busy holding or soldering the tubing.)
The beauty of the Manabloc was that each fixture was able to be turned on individually. This meant that the toilets and sinks were only off for about an hour and the showers were up and running before too long. (There is a valve at the Manabloc to turn off any fixture.)
The final step was the front hose bib. I had some beautiful brass tubing to put in the new hose bib. After using some Teflon tape and screwing it together, I anchored the hose bib to the house and was done.
Sunday I discovered three leaks. All three were brass fittings that screwed onto brass piping. The two that were in the laundry were quickly tightened and stopped. The front hose bib stripped out when I tried to tighten it and began leaking more. A quick turn of the valve on the Manabloc and I could wait until Monday to return to the store for a new part. I bought a copper male adapter, soldered it to a piece of copper pipe, and then soldered a brass pex adapter to the fitting. I screwed the copper pipe into the brass elbow and strapped it down. No leaks. I was done!
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Tags:
basement remodel,
DIY
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on Thursday, September 28th, 2006 at 10:50 pm and is filed under projects.
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