Pulp Bath 1 Reno

Another weekend in the books (#8 if you are keeping track) and much accomplished. The goal was to finish the sub-flooring and get going on the walls, and get going we did! Of course, a couple bumps in the road, but all to be expected with an “older” home.

First up was installing those last sections of Durock, you know, the ones with the cut-outs for the sink and the toilet, which, despite one minor measurement error (forgot to account for the smaller 6 inch wide piece that would go behind the toilet) actually was easier than I thought it would be as it is fairly easy to cut pieces of Durock into the shape you need (using a jig saw) and, let’s face it, there is no real requirement to have to put down large full sheets of Durock as this will all eventually get tiled over, with the tile mortar filling in all of the cuts in the Durock for a nice finished floor.

And on to the walls we went which, again, we’re going floor to ceiling tile (essentially the “shower” sides as it is a corner unit and backs up to two walls) on the two sides and then floor to half way up tile on the other two (vanity and window sides). For anything with tile we are using the “magic” Go Board we discussed last week, remember, that super lightweight and easy to use backer board (it’s even waterproof) and then regular Sheetrock on those other halves. Go Board (much like Durock) comes in 3’x5’ sheets and as it turns out, the wall studs (at least on two walls and for the first sheets put in) measured right at 60”, aka, the 5’ mark, so that was nice, no cutting! First sheet in and then….out of the corner of my eye….caught what looked to be a wet spot on the Durock floor. Where did that come from? Right next to the water feed for the toilet button, valve tightly closed there. On closer look, seems there is an abandoned cast iron vent pipe, capped and sitting in the wall with, as it turns out, a very small hole in the cap edge and a continuing drip plopping out and trickling down to the Durock floor. What to do and why was this happening? Well, turns out it had been raining for a couple days and with vent pipes being open to the sky on the roof, it allows for rain to get into the vent and basically drip on down till it gets to a waste line, normally, not a probably, unless, you guessed it, it has no where to go, aka, like a capped abandoned vent line that has a small hole in it! Yup, rain had filled the cap high enough to leak on out.

Now clearly this needed to be repaired prior to closing that wall up for sure. Easier said than done. Cast iron pipe is extremely strong and most difficult to cut, plan being to cut the pipe up closer to where it ties in, then add new PVC pipe with cap and secure it to cast iron with a no-hub (rubber) clamp. Pipe being in the wall figured the best plan of attack was with a Sawzall and short metal cut blade. 6 blades and an hour later I had gotten about 3/4 of the way through the pipe and decided it was hammer time. Cast iron tough to cut but you can break it pretty easy with a hammer. Anyway, break it did, slightly jagged edge on back side of pipe but plenty of room to attach the clamp securely to. Problem solved!

Back to the walls, two sides completed and have the shower valve in the wall, just need to complete the feed up to the spout and we can finish closing up, good times, tile soon?

Progress pics below, hope you enjoy and we’ll see you next week!