Sunday, October 27, 2013

Unexpected plumbing work

We had a little unexpected plumbing work pop up this weekend.  I went down into the basement to check on a wet spot I found a week earlier.  Turned out that it as a pipe that sprung a leak!  I made my parts list and made the trip to the big box store to get all the parts/pieces.  Wherever possible I have been converting the plumbing to pex tubing.  This leak provided me another chance to do some pex upgrades.  The leaking pipe was an old galvanized pipe that transitioned to copper.  I figure the copper work is about 30 years old so this galvanized is certainly a lot older than that.



The galvanized pipe just disintegrated when I touched it.  It was also more than 75% clogged.
The new runs are connected to small 4-port manifolds.  I love how new construction is using a single giant manifold centralized in the basement but that just isn't practical in a retrofit scenario.  Instead I have been using the small manifolds and have been locating them in the area that work is performed. When I did the plumbing for the master bath (work done from underneath in kitchen ceiling) I added them to handle all the bath fixtures.  Now this is my second pair that handle the kitchen sink, pot filler, half-bath, and guest bath/laundry.   They are nice because I always have leave an extra port for future upgrades, and I also can add cutoffs at the manifold like you see here:



I started to think about it after I finished this work and I do believe I have eliminated 98% of the old galvanized pipe.  The whole house is now either copper or pex. The only exception is a main line that runs from the meter across to the other side of the basement.  I have a feeling that if I can get that replaced, then I will in pretty good shape!

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