Basement Remodel - update

A couple of weeks ago, George finished the basics of our master bathroom replumbing job so that we could use it again.  He framed the wall between the closet and the bathroom, but he hasn't solidified it yet nor put up drywall.  He decided to leave it all open until all of our plumbing issues have been completed... and that's a whole other problem!!

Meanwhile, our hall bathroom has been taken out of commission so that he can replace its plumbing.  While doing this, he figured he'd put in the rough-ins for our new bathroom in the basement.  What does putting rough-ins require?  It requires a jackhammer to break the concrete and a trowl to scoop out the dirt surrounding the area where you're going to put down new pipes.  It's not all concrete surrounding the pipes.  It's just concrete on the top layer, and packed dirt/rocks underneath of a layer of concrete.

In the following picture, you can see where the concrete was broken and new PVC pipe was installed.  In fact, George only intended to jackhammer to where the new shower will be (see the first picture - there is a T-square on the floor... that will be the shower drain), but he went further to where the tall pipe is on the wall (which leads to our kitchen drain).   The reason for that is forthcoming.

New bathroom rough-ins

The cleanout at the far corner of the picture is where the toilet will be.  To the left of that, there is another pipe sticking out of the ground - that's where the vanity will be.  And as mentioned earlier, where the T-square is sitting is where the shower drain will be.  

The reason George jackhammered all the way to the kitchen to replace all of that drain piping is because the pipes and drains were disgusting.  George was shocked our kitchen was draining at all.  The following picture shows just how clogged the kitchen drain was. 

Former kitchen drain pipe

 That's 50+ years of grease and overall digustingness... Steve and I are actually really careful about what goes down that drain in terms of grease because I grew up with septic, and you can't afford to put grease down your drain!

In the next picture, you can see the leftover dirt pile of dirt and rocks we excavated to make room for the new drains.  Some of that will go back in the whole, but not until we're ready to re-cement the holes.  We won't use it all; there is no way we can pack it in there the way it was.

Excavation dirt pile

George has also eliminated some (oh yes, there's more!) of the plumbing rats nest we have.  Between a laundry drain, the air conditioner pump drain,  the water filtration system drain, the kitchen and the utility tub drains, there were pipes EVERYWHERE, including an unnecessary one that was bolted to the back wall of the house and went all the way around the back wall (air conditioning drain). 

Now that George is done replacing the kitchen stuff and laying down the rough-ins for the new bathroom, he's going to replace the drains and pipes for the hall bathroom so we can get that bathroom back.  The kids like showering, but they really do miss the bathtub.  But George has had to wait to change that bathroom's pipes and drains to see how both the hall bath and the downstairs bath were going to fit together drain-wise.

Although this is a slow process, this is definitely worth it.  We  would have had more issues later on had we ignored the signs.