A Long Sunday

We had a full day on Sunday. A friend came over and helped, too. Big thanks to the K-bot! He and my wife primered the master bedroom (most of it). I had forgotten a few supplies, so they went and bought some. This exciting picture is of the same section of wall that I patched last week.

I spent all day in the crawl space directly below the master bedroom repairing a small leak in the cast iron drain line. I hate plumbing. This experience confirms my dislike. I had gotten an estimate for the repair a couple of weeks ago. The plumbing guy was really nice and told me I could easily do the repair myself and save some money. He suggested I get a cast iron pipe cutter/cracker, cut the pipe on both sides of the leak, and replace the section with ABS pipe using rubber couplers. That sounded easy enough.

I went to the equipment rental store and rented the cracker. The salesman walked me through how to use the tool. I crawled under the house, tried to use it, and successfully got the tool stuck on the pipe with no way to remove it. K-bot even came under the house to add his strength to the lever arm and all we did was bend the tool's arm! I just don't see how the cracker was supposed to be able to even crack the pipe! We bent the arm straight again, and I went and got a sawzall (which I should have gotten in the beginning) and tried to cut the pipe, thus freeing the pipe cracker and the leaky joint. The cut on the right side of the leak took forever and four blades. With only one blade left and one more cut to make, I went back to the rental store and got more blades. The guys at the store said it must have been one hard pipe (it was!). They offered the use of a sledge-hammer. The second cut went very quickly and I only went through 2 blades! The pipe on the left side of the leak must have been a different material, or my technique had vastly improved! I am also very thankful about not getting sprayed in the face by water from the drainline. I'd been trying to avoid this the entire time. I used a grinder to clean up the ends of the iron pipe(s) and remove some of the embossed lettering. I inserted the ABS pipe and tightened the collars. All done. I hope it doesn't leak! I'll go under and check later this week. The repair in the drain line is at a low point and I think that this is not good. When we redo the bathrooms (and probably connect to the sewer), this problem will be eliminated.

By the way, I returned the pipe cracker with the section of pipe still trapped in the tool. They said it was okay. I hope they don't charge me to remove the pipe. There was no way I could do it, though.

Oh, the pellet stove seems to be working well. It went out over Saturday night because we turned it down too far. We are trying a higher setting now. I feel like we own a real house now that it doesn't smell musty and is warm. I know this feeling will just continue to grow as the house slowly becomes a home.