(no subject)
Sep. 12th, 2012 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
figmentOhmygod that damned bathroom.
So we knew the bathroom in the house needed to be redone. It wasn't watertight around the tub, and there was a light in the shower surround area (electrocution, such a great way to start your day!)... so we knocked out the whole wet wall of the bathroom. Our friend J offered to help us out - he knew how to do plumbing and sweat pipes, he said, and we knew he needed some income. It seemed like a win-win for us all. So he went to work on it. Do we need to pull permits for this stuff? I asked innocently. Nah, he said, and I shrugged and went along with it.
Let's skip ahead quite a while, after he's put in the pipes (one of which, in the basement, is still peskily leaking a bit, but he's sure he can get it fixed). We proceed with putting walls back in and Joe's dad goes to work carefully tiling. We get the toilet in (hooray!) and move in, even though probably I was overly aggressive in that timing - we probably should have waited and just moved in when the whole bathroom was done.
The other night, J came over and got things set up so we might be able to use the tub. He thought he might have fixed the leak, too. Exciting!
But. When we turned the water on to the tub, it leaked. A lot. Like, the pipes that went just to the tub were leaking in a serious way. Oh shit. Not only was the leaky pipe in the basement not fixed, but the plumbing to the tub was seriously leaky too.
That plumbing is hidden inside a carefully constructed and lovingly tiled box that takes up the spare foot or so of space at the head of the tub. It's a weird construction but it was how the previous owner had it set up, and we were told that it would be too much of a pain in the neck to move the tub, so we should just reconstruct the box there and make it watertight. (We were told this by at least two people.)
So we had a real professional plumber come today, from Aqua City Plumbers. He spent about 45 minutes looking at the thing and shaking his head. Apparently there's no end of stuff that was not done to code; basically 90% of the plumbing that was added won't pass inspection. He also noted that because of the "box" at the head of the tub, the shower will need a big long neck to reach out to where it's useful... in short, it would have been better to move the tub.
According to the professional plumber, at a wild-ass guess, to have Aqua City do it and get our bathroom done right, we'd need to:
(a) pull all relevant permits (which means a city inspector would be there, and might find all sorts of other problems - say, with the rather aged wiring?)
(b) rip out the bathroom wall again - the one that just got redone - or else rip out the closet wall on the other side to give access to the plumbing
(c) quite possibly rip out the box and move the tub
(d) spend in the neighborhood of $5-6 K on just the plumbing issues... including taking out almost everything we paid J to do.
He seemed to vaguely indicate (but not want to actually say) that we had other options, like getting it done without permits and not to code by some other plumber. But I don't know if we'd want to do that. I feel like we screwed up once by hiring a non-professional and not doing it right, and I don't particularly want to go down that path again.
And then I cried. I'm honestly not even sure what to do next. Do we rip out the closet wall so we can have a plumber come back and try to replumb the whole thing? Do we (sob) rip out the lovingly tiled and built bathroom wall? I'm asking another friend who has contracting experience to give us some advice, so that's something. We'll come up with something, but ... ohmygod so much suck.
So we knew the bathroom in the house needed to be redone. It wasn't watertight around the tub, and there was a light in the shower surround area (electrocution, such a great way to start your day!)... so we knocked out the whole wet wall of the bathroom. Our friend J offered to help us out - he knew how to do plumbing and sweat pipes, he said, and we knew he needed some income. It seemed like a win-win for us all. So he went to work on it. Do we need to pull permits for this stuff? I asked innocently. Nah, he said, and I shrugged and went along with it.
Let's skip ahead quite a while, after he's put in the pipes (one of which, in the basement, is still peskily leaking a bit, but he's sure he can get it fixed). We proceed with putting walls back in and Joe's dad goes to work carefully tiling. We get the toilet in (hooray!) and move in, even though probably I was overly aggressive in that timing - we probably should have waited and just moved in when the whole bathroom was done.
The other night, J came over and got things set up so we might be able to use the tub. He thought he might have fixed the leak, too. Exciting!
But. When we turned the water on to the tub, it leaked. A lot. Like, the pipes that went just to the tub were leaking in a serious way. Oh shit. Not only was the leaky pipe in the basement not fixed, but the plumbing to the tub was seriously leaky too.
That plumbing is hidden inside a carefully constructed and lovingly tiled box that takes up the spare foot or so of space at the head of the tub. It's a weird construction but it was how the previous owner had it set up, and we were told that it would be too much of a pain in the neck to move the tub, so we should just reconstruct the box there and make it watertight. (We were told this by at least two people.)
So we had a real professional plumber come today, from Aqua City Plumbers. He spent about 45 minutes looking at the thing and shaking his head. Apparently there's no end of stuff that was not done to code; basically 90% of the plumbing that was added won't pass inspection. He also noted that because of the "box" at the head of the tub, the shower will need a big long neck to reach out to where it's useful... in short, it would have been better to move the tub.
According to the professional plumber, at a wild-ass guess, to have Aqua City do it and get our bathroom done right, we'd need to:
(a) pull all relevant permits (which means a city inspector would be there, and might find all sorts of other problems - say, with the rather aged wiring?)
(b) rip out the bathroom wall again - the one that just got redone - or else rip out the closet wall on the other side to give access to the plumbing
(c) quite possibly rip out the box and move the tub
(d) spend in the neighborhood of $5-6 K on just the plumbing issues... including taking out almost everything we paid J to do.
He seemed to vaguely indicate (but not want to actually say) that we had other options, like getting it done without permits and not to code by some other plumber. But I don't know if we'd want to do that. I feel like we screwed up once by hiring a non-professional and not doing it right, and I don't particularly want to go down that path again.
And then I cried. I'm honestly not even sure what to do next. Do we rip out the closet wall so we can have a plumber come back and try to replumb the whole thing? Do we (sob) rip out the lovingly tiled and built bathroom wall? I'm asking another friend who has contracting experience to give us some advice, so that's something. We'll come up with something, but ... ohmygod so much suck.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-12 07:31 pm (UTC)Also, I've not seen your house (sorry I couldn't help out), but boxes have six sides. Can you add an access panel on any of them? It need not be in the same room as the tub. I have long fantasized about ripping out the wall on the other side of a bathroom and just putting in a bathroom door. Need access to plumbing? Unlock and open... easy peasy.
I would lean towards having a real plumber do the work, after consultation with friends. I did a bathroom redo once on the cheap, and I hated using it every day for the next five years. Get it done well if you can afford to do so.
If you can't, do enough that the damage doesn't grow while neglected... even if it's ugly.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-12 07:58 pm (UTC)Thanks for the perspective on the first year being the most expensive. I'm sure it will be for us. It better be, at the rate it's going! :-)
As to damage, at least right now, the worst thing that's happening - I think - is that we've got a leaking pipe that requires us to turn off the water when we leave the house or have a couple of gallons go down the drain. That, and not being able to bathe normally in our own home. It'll all make for great stories, right?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-13 02:43 pm (UTC)If you can confirm that the only leak is into the tub and down the drain, you have little to worry about. The true concern is water inside the wall and running down rafters into the basement. If there's no risk of mold or rot, you can certainly live with it until funds appear to fix it right.
An alternative (that I'd personally hate, but it's an option) would be to scour FreeCycle for a free-standing tub. Rip out the mess you have, drop the new tub in place, put hooks in the ceiling to hold a hose and run flexible plastic tubing to create a shower. You should be able to hack together something that works for around $100, and this could tide you over until things can be done right. Then, you just freecycle the tub back into the community.
Regardless, when you get it done right, add access panels even if the plumbers say you won't need them. If you add them, you won't need them. If you don't add them, you'll need to replace a wall and floor just when you can't afford to do so.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-13 06:05 pm (UTC)The bummer is that until we get it fixed, our best showering and bathing situation is to hang up a camp shower in our basement. Seriously. Because if we turn on water that goes to the tub, THEN terrible leaking happens that would doubtless give us mold and so on. I don't think we could even do the shower solution you suggest at the moment without incurring that kind of leaking.
Good thing we're adaptable. And we're having a second plumber come over and look today.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-13 09:10 pm (UTC)2) Good news, you don't have a problem. You have two problems.
The basement sounds like a priority problem that, if fixed, means that you can ignore the bathroom problem for a while. Is that true? (If I were in town atm, I'd just pop by and take a look at it. Having dealt with mold in my previous place, I'm a bit sensitized to water issues.)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-13 09:47 pm (UTC)We can only ignore the bathroom problem for as long as we care to live without a real way to bathe. I may be underplaying it, but I think the basement leak is not much more urgent than that. (In case it is not clear, the two are directly related; the leak in the basement is from plumbing that runs up into the bathroom.)
From the now-two plumbers who have come out, it seems like our options are:
(1) Right now, get the leak fixed. Access the bathtub plumbing by cutting a hole in our closet, and get that fixed up to the point where it will be fine for a good long while. Proceed with bathroom construction and have a shower and tub we can actually use. ... One day, maybe in the far future, another problem will happen, or we will want to be able to pass inspection for some reason, and we will then need to do about $5k of work on the bathroom, re-doing all the plumbing.
(2) Get the $5k of plumbing work done right now, and never have to deal with it again. Possibly face larger/unexpected expenses, because if we get permits and do it all by the book, we may also be told that we have to do something about the wiring or some other things - I hear that once the city inspector gets in there it can be like opening a can of worms.
Joe and I are discussing which way to go.