Our Laundry Room "Makeover" Projects On Our Home Of Twenty Years
Mid 2009
This story is about our old new house in Wekiva Hills, near Wekiva Springs State Park and the Wekiva River. Once upon a time, we bought a home warranty to protect our investiment. Or so we thought at the time. But it seemed the more we called upon them, thinking the defective item needed replaced, all they would do is repair it. And not even a long term repair. Just enough of a repair to the item chugging along. When it got to the point that we were spending as much a year as the repairs would have cost out of pocket anyway, we really began to question its benefit.
This repair is the straw that broke the camel's back... It started with a leak that had soaked the living room carpet along the wall to the laundry room. The tiled floor of the laundry room itself was wet as well. At first, we thought the hot water tank itself was leaking. After all, it was built in late '77, and was probably the original, installed when the house was built in '78. Nope. The leak was coming from inside the wall between the laundry room and the atrium. Turning off the supply valve to the water heater stops the hissing sound in the wall at least.
I thought there was a shutoff valve for the water supply just in front of the house, beneath the hose bib, but I was wrong. The only other place I can find to shut off the water supply to house is at the curb, and I'll need a "curb key" to do so. I can't remember if I already had one, or had to buy one, but it is cheap in any case. Made from rebar and still flimsy. I really have to lean on the handle, yanking on it as hard as I can, just to get the valve to budge. I'm searching for some extra leverage in a piece of pipe or something, but finding nothing. I eventually manage to get the thing shut off, but it takes all I have just to do it. Now the fun begins...
If you can call it fun. Now I need to disconnect and remove the hot water heater just to be able to get to the wall behind it. I've already turned off the circuit breaker, and now I get to disconnect the electrical connection to it. Meanwhile, Ann is busy with the shop vac, trying to get the majority of the wetness out of the carpet. Next I'm busy disonnecting the plumbing, and by disconnecting, i mean sweating the soldered joints apart with a propane torch. But before I go to all that trouble, I decide to see if I can find the trouble spot and fix it.
The wall is closed off only by a couple pieces of thin plywood cut to fit around the plumbing. I back out the screws then set them aside. It's a tight fit, but I'm able to see there is a pinhole leak in the hot water line coming from the tank. I'm thinking maybe I can get a "saddle patch" to work. As hard as I try, I can't seem to get the damned thing to "stick". It would help if there was more room to get at it, but short of sweating the rest of the plumbing apart to get the tank out of the way, this is it. I finally throw up my hands in disgust and we call the home warranty company to send someone out.
I have a great respect for plumbers, but the idiot they sent out decides to just cut out the bad section and crimp a piece of plastic over the remaining existing copper. I had asked him if he could at least put a union in, which he did. That way, at least if I had to do anything else, like replace his stupid plastic patch with copper I would be able to without having to take anything else apart. To make things worse, he's trying to tell me that our plumbing, all copper, is corroded and ready to fail and needs replaced. He hands me the piece he just cut out to shoiw me how badly it's corroded inside...
I look and see nothing but smooth wall - no scale, no build up, no corrosion. I ask him how much it's going to cost me for the privledge and he starts with how they'll run plastic in the attic and they'll only have to cut a small access in the drywall behind the bathrooms and... Okay. Stop right there. I just got done rennovating both the bathrooms and the master bedroom. We're not cutting a hole in anything, like the new wallpaper, let alone tearing out the new sink and cabinet. Not to mention, that's not what I asked... How much is this going to cost?
Yeah. No. $5600 is way too much for what I'd consider an inferior plumbing material. As much as he talks down the copper, I'd rather stick with it, keeping its antiseptic qualities. Considering all of the class action suits against the old gray plastic and the horror stories of burst pipes in the attic causing major damage, I have to wonder if they've finally gotten it right, or if there's another failure mode yet to be discovered. While I'm on the subject, I really don't put much faith in any of the more modern building materials. They're all meant to reduce construction time and cost, sure, but what are we trading away for that benefit? Longevity? Durability?
I'm not advocating we go back to lead pipe, or even iron pipe for that matter, copper works just fine and has added shall we say "medicinal" benefits. It is more difficult to work with than PVC or CPVC, and has it's drawbacks, but then again the only time I've seen it crack is when the water inside it has been allowed to freeze. I can't say that about the plastic pipe. In fact, they say not to use plastic pipe when plumbing for compressed air since the pipe can burst! Not the stuff I want for water supply. It's perfectly fine to use for waste plumbing, but I don't trust it for anything else.
So long story short, that stupid fix stays that way with the wall wide open for nearly a year. I was rather upset with the idiot at he time as well since he didn't even bother to rough the wall back in. They're supposed to do that, but he knew damn well he left no way to do that. This time, we're replacing all of that crap with copper, and doing it right with a union in both lines to allow for easy removal in the future if need be, as well as closing up the wall and making it more like a room than a "hole in the wall".
On the laundry room side, a gaping, ugly hole with ill fitting pieces of thing plywood. On the atrium side, poorly installed and ill fitting aluminum siding, complete with gaps along the bottom into the wall cavity in many places. My concern is getting the lower course(s) of aluminum siding off without destroying it and how to remount it to the wall once the repairs are finished. Normally the bottom edge is installed (read nailed in) first, then the next course "snaps" into it and is atttached, then the next, etc.
In our case, we can't get beneath the courses above where we need to work to reattach the lower parts when we're done. At least, not easily. But that's the least of my worries. We already know, from experience, that modern clothes dryers don't like pushing all that air and lint up a tall, through the roof vent stack. I'll need to install a new vent. This one will go through the wall into the atrium though. I'll just use an eletrical box cover or the like to cover the hole in the ceiling from the old one. All brand new metal ducting. I'll have to wait until the machines are stacked to determine the fit though.
Then there's the plumbing. The whole reason this is such a pain to begin with. The biggest issue is how to tie in the new drain with the existing drain stack. I'm really not familiar with plumbing code, but adding another tee should do the trick, right? Let's save that for last, after I have the new copper and supplies installed. That much goes quickly, the long pole in the tent drilling through the studs for the new utility sink supplies.
The drain is a pain.
Drywall, mud, drywall, mud, and more drywall and mud. And paint. And more paint.
Siding. Vinyl siding, not aluminum siding. Maybe someday we'll strip the rest of the post-it™ note yellow siding off the atrium walls so we'll be able to paint it to match the rest of the house. The previous owners had birds in there, and it looks like they sharpened their beaks on everything made of wood, which is probably why they used the aluminum siding to cover the original wood siding in the first place. Maybe we'll just paint the aluminum siding...
The rotted wood and sill plates replaced, the new vinyl siding cuts cut to fit the new vent and the garden hose bib. I'm able to use a standard siding tool to snap the old aluminum over the new vinyl, and once the vegetation in there grows up to hide it, it won't even be noticable...
If you want something done right... Don't use the home waranty folks to do it!
