A little more minor progress on the house fire situation

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67Dart273

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Plumbing, not done,.......

Got all the old galvanized pipe out, except I am leaving about 2ft coming in and out of the water tank. Easier to let that dog lie, and there were handy fittings right there. I still have to finish up hangers, and add two tees right inline with each other, in the new 3/4 pex run to feed the washer and bathroom vanity. That will not be a big job. I quit around 5:30, ate, took a breather. JUST got back in here 9:30PM after about a last of 45 minutes--got the hot run to the shower. So now I have water back in the house, and a brand new outdoor faucet out front from Friday.

And When I get a breath, I'm gonna add another outdoor frost free out back. I did have both hot and cold, comeing from the old kitchen sink, and straight through the wall. I may wait until the inspectors are all gone, and re-create that setup.

Otherwise, I'll just punch a nearby hole in the sill and come directly out of the basement with cold only

I FINALLY seemed to regained my impressive 77 year old strength LOLOL. That cold--whatever I had, ate my *** now for over a MONTH

This all still needs hangers. Part of the "sloppy" is because I just simply have not cleaned up some of the odd low voltage/ old telco wiring, and also what you can't see is I had to already remove considerable amounts of the furnace ducting just to get to the piping. I'll have to clean the ducting anyhow, so this was not wasted effort.

Still needs hangers, etc. So I still have a fair amount.

Need to hook the hot to the vanity and laundry are the big things.


Laundry. This was already pex down into the basement, connecting there to the old galvanized. All this was melted in the fire I detest these new valves---they close CCW instead of CW

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No hangers yet, the new front faucet. I hit that one winter with the little cletrac dozer and bent the outside of the faucet all up LOL. The ugly thing in the middle is RF heliax, hi quality, low loss UHF coax
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The shower. This piping is in a box under the joists in the electronics room, the front faucet runs off to the left. Need more hangers for all of this
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Below,toilet. Yup, that is original cast iron / lead &oakum sealed 1950's sewer stack.
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Below,the vanity. Still need to connect the hot,
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cold water tees to the vanity/ toilet, and to the laundry Hot will hopefully be done tomorrow
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Below, all that's left of galvanized. I partly left it for convenience, and because it provides a good anchor point You can't see here, but there's a pex tee in the cold for the kitchen, and the tee in the galvanized to pex transistion has a plug facing to the rear, this will be the kitchen hot connection I guess I'll stick a frost free through the sill up to left, and connect to the blue in the corner, which is the supply into the house
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ll the old 1950's ****. Some of it had considerable internal rust, and some looked pretty good for all those years. For some reason they use a HUGE number of unions, which made getting it out easier. I recently scored 2 used 24" wrenches for a good price, and the shape I'm in, I need all the torque arm I can get.
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The vanity stubs. It is just sitting there, and won't be connected until drywall I had NOTHING to do, by the way, with notching the stud to the left. This is not a supporting wall, tho
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Any progress is good. Tell me about PEX. I've heard of it. Any advantages over PVC?
It seems to be much more accepted, and bends some. In fact in some cases you can bend a 90 in the stuff. You don't glue it. There are two types of piple. One, you use an expander tool which stretches the pipe internally. You slip that over the fitting, and in a short time it retracts around the fitting. I believe that uses a push on retainer ring.

The stuff I am using uses either a crimp ring or what is called a pinch clamp. The crimps are hard for me, as i don't have a power tool, and 3/4 is nearly impossible for me to crimp without having the pieces on a bench where I can put my weight on the crimpers

For the pinch clamps, I scored a 'tool only" Ryobi power tool, and with an ebay adapter, can use my Makita 18V Li-on batteries. It works OK but you have to be careful, in tight places, and get it engaged.

This house had a little bit of pex since 03 in the rebuild then. Part of the shower stubs down through the floor, the laundry connections, and the kitchen sink.

Many common popular fittings for pex are plastic, and you can also use brass. They MUST be purpose built for pex
 
The stuff I am using uses either a crimp ring or what is called a pinch clamp. The crimps are hard for me, as i don't have a power tool, and 3/4 is nearly impossible for me to crimp without having the pieces on a bench where I can put my weight on the crimpers
I've had a lot of success with those shark bite fittings in tight spaces. They make them for pex. They cost more though. The trick is there's like two steps. When you first push the pex into the fitting, it'll feel like it seated, but push it again and it'll actually seat all the way.
 
Any progress is good. Tell me about PEX. I've heard of it. Any advantages over PVC?
Good morning, you have to visit Lowes to see their PEX display. We saw it right b4 Independance Day. I wanted that colorful square tubing. Not sure why. Make something else with it. Launch fireworks from it. LOL
 
Any progress is good. Tell me about PEX. I've heard of it. Any advantages over PVC?
I've used Pex in two rental houses. For my house I'd use copper because I don't like plastics, but to be brutally honest, I doubt that there's an issue with it. It's the same material (UHMW) as plastic water bottles or the plastic used in food production equipment.

The nice thing about it is, it's flexible and can expand. Copper with water in it freezes, expands, and doesn't return. Eventually that repeats enough and it bursts. PVC with water in it just cracks when water freezes. Pex expands, and then contracts again. It's easy to run (I still use fittings and don't like sweeping bends, even though there's much less loss with bends).

It's not all that expensive, and been used in Europe for decades. Just like anything else, try not to get Chinese Pex or fittings, but it's robust and simple.
 
Well need to tidy up and a few more hangers, but depending on "sir inspector" the rough in plumbing is done. The kitchen is stubbed only to underneath the floor, as I want to toss the sink base in when the time comes, and drill up through the existing holes in the floor, up through the sink base floor.

Finished the hot stubbed to the vanity, and connected hot to the laundry. When I get time, I'll haul the washer BACK upstairs and will be able (legally or not) use it in it's proper place until insulation/ dry wall starts, just move it out of the way.

I still need to add the rear outdoor faucet, but that is not a priority. I actually could just connect a hose to the laundry and run that out

Bought two more of those junk glued sawdust shelves from Goodwill for 15 apiece. I guess a foot deep, 2ft? wide and 6ft high

I am tired, my back hurts.
 
In my view, pex is great because it doesn't burst or crack when it freezes. Granted, I am in Texas, but the last couple of winters we have had 48 hours plus of freezing temps (into the teens) and I have had my outdoor brass faucets freeze and split, but the pex just expands and then when it thaws out the water flows and there are no cracks or leaks. I've had it in place 7 years with no issues. I definately recommend it - indoors and outdoors.
 
ll the old 1950's ****. Some of it had considerable internal rust, and some looked pretty good for all those years. For some reason they use a HUGE number of unions, which made getting it out easier. I recently scored 2 used 24" wrenches for a good price, and the shape I'm in, I need all the torque arm I can get.
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I wouldn't call that metal piping "****", it lasted 75 years. The plastic piping will last nowhere near that length of time before it falls apart or gets someone sick.
 
I replumbed our beach camper with Pex. It's easy to work with and won't freeze and bust like copper or galvanized. I use the brass connectors with crimp rings. They make a clip on bracket so you can make a 90 degree turn without a fitting. Shark Bite fittings are easy, but they cost out the ying yang!
 
I wouldn't call that metal piping "****", it lasted 75 years. The plastic piping will last nowhere near that length of time before it falls apart or gets someone sick.
Sadly, you are likely correct. If I were younger, I'd probably have used copper.
 
Sadly, you are likely correct. If I were younger, I'd probably have used copper.
Ya, I put all new copper back into my house renovation. At least I know it will last a while without any problems, based on how many years the last copper system lasted (almost 100 years).
 

The good thing about PEX is that it has a good expansion rate when water freezes in it. I had a bath remodel done and the plumbing contractor told me to try and experiment. He handed me about 18" of PEX that was sealed on one end and told me to fill it with water. He sealed the other end and told me to put it in the freezer standing up. He told me to check it the next day for damage. It had swollen due to expansion of the water but it didn't split, pop the seals, or burst. As I do further remodel on the house, I'm replacing all of the copper and PVC with PEX.
 
One of the biggest things slowing me down is my back, which has become unpredictable and certainly chronic. I have to lay down at least once and sometimes twice a day to settle it down.

Since I can no longer work all that long, hard, or fast anymore, that takes a BIG chunk out of "what gets done" in a day
 
Any progress is good. Tell me about PEX. I've heard of it. Any advantages over PVC?

Hey Rob, I did our entire house in red for hot and blue for cold in pex in two days.

I was quoted 2,800 by a local contractor but paid 800 for the tubing and all the sharkbite fittings including all the tools.

We have a bathroom at each end of the house and set it up so I can turn the water off to either end or both with ball valves.

The sharkbite fittings are a slip together with an O ring seal type fitting and it takes a super cheap little plastic tool to separate them if needed.
They work like GM heater connectors.
It’s been years now and not one single issue.
 
Glad to hear your getting it together Del. Surely there must be a member or 2 close by that could give u a helping hand for a few hours or whatever it will take to get er done. Kim
 
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