Lots of work done, lots more to go...
Well I've been really busy working on my new duplex. I've got one porch wrapped with new siding, I've rebuilt a floor that had water damage from a leaky fridge and reinstalled the tile where the fix went, I've replaced the plumbing under the kitchen sink and some of the pvc pipes in the basement, only to find a MAJOR plumbing problem in the basement. I was running out the nasty smelly water out of the hot water heater (it stinks if it sits for a while), and I noticed my basement was semi flooded; water was coming out of the wall.
So I got my mentor over there and we figured out that the main old cast metal drain pipe which was for the most part cemented into the wall, had broke off due to some foundation settling, etc. So I had to chisel out all the concrete and bricks that encased this huge pipe. If you have an auto body air hammer, it will make short work of bricks and concrete, I highly recommend buying one if you ever have to knock out any mortar or bricks, etc. I had hammered and chiseled until I had a huge blister and made hardly any progress, so I got the air compressor over there and my air hammer and within 30 minutes I had a nice clean cut hole around the plumbing. Right at the end I tore my knuckles off on the concrete, ouch.
A couple days later I got all the parts, roughly about 70 dollars in pcv pipe, and two fernco rubber connectors. These are basic rubber boots with hose clamps that let you adapt from old non standard size freakshow pipes to standard pcv pipe which is used today and 100x easier to work with. When it was all done it looked like this:
http://www.joelhuenink.com/uploaded_images/plumbing.jpg
It doesn't look like much, but trust me that would have been 500 bucks if not more to have a plumber come fix it. So being able to do it myself for around 70 saved me a lot of money. I learned a lot too which was cool.
I've started tearing apart the bathroom. It needs some new shelving made, light fixtures updated, a coat of paint & random drywall fixes, and probably some new tile and trim. Basically a little less than the last bathroom I did, I'm hoping to have it done by the end of this week and to get the for rent sign up soon, maybe in a week or two. I'm sure there will be a lot more small odds and ends before I'm done, and I'm still wondering if I should repaint the trim and walls in the living area because I don't really care for it a whole lot. We'll see.
Anyhow I'm excited all the major stuff is done on one side, and its down to minor stuff and cosmetics. Thats when it starts to get fun for me.
So I got my mentor over there and we figured out that the main old cast metal drain pipe which was for the most part cemented into the wall, had broke off due to some foundation settling, etc. So I had to chisel out all the concrete and bricks that encased this huge pipe. If you have an auto body air hammer, it will make short work of bricks and concrete, I highly recommend buying one if you ever have to knock out any mortar or bricks, etc. I had hammered and chiseled until I had a huge blister and made hardly any progress, so I got the air compressor over there and my air hammer and within 30 minutes I had a nice clean cut hole around the plumbing. Right at the end I tore my knuckles off on the concrete, ouch.
A couple days later I got all the parts, roughly about 70 dollars in pcv pipe, and two fernco rubber connectors. These are basic rubber boots with hose clamps that let you adapt from old non standard size freakshow pipes to standard pcv pipe which is used today and 100x easier to work with. When it was all done it looked like this:
http://www.joelhuenink.com/uploaded_images/plumbing.jpg
It doesn't look like much, but trust me that would have been 500 bucks if not more to have a plumber come fix it. So being able to do it myself for around 70 saved me a lot of money. I learned a lot too which was cool.
I've started tearing apart the bathroom. It needs some new shelving made, light fixtures updated, a coat of paint & random drywall fixes, and probably some new tile and trim. Basically a little less than the last bathroom I did, I'm hoping to have it done by the end of this week and to get the for rent sign up soon, maybe in a week or two. I'm sure there will be a lot more small odds and ends before I'm done, and I'm still wondering if I should repaint the trim and walls in the living area because I don't really care for it a whole lot. We'll see.
Anyhow I'm excited all the major stuff is done on one side, and its down to minor stuff and cosmetics. Thats when it starts to get fun for me.
posted by Joel Huenink at
11:23 PM
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