Last Piece Of The Plumbing Puzzle

And it is a puzzle. This small area of the house - 10X6 feet - now has pipes and drains for two bathrooms and a laundry room under it. Along with that, the first floor sub panel is on the wall just opposite this space, and there are two CAT5 and two coaxial cables from the second floor that feed right up through this area as well. If you remember that old “Pipes” screen saver, well picture that with a bunch of romex and telecom cables thrown in to the mix. It’s a wonder I didn’t fry anything with the soldering torch.

It took three tries to fix the stupid leak in the stupid pipe from yesterday. In the past when I’m faced with one of these pin-hole leaks I’ve been able clean the copper around the leak, apply a little flux, and then resolder. It wouldn’t work this time. I eventually had to take the thing apart, clean it all real good, and then resolder. What a pain.

Someone yesterday suggested poor quality flux might have been the problem. While I’m sure there is crappy flux out there I happen to know I use the same brand as the largest plumbing concern in town. No, I think the problem was that I didn’t clean the copper well enough. I have this 4-in-1 pipe cleaner that will clean the inside and outside of half inch and three-quarter inch pipe. It’s pretty worn out and dirty. I think that was the culprit. Anyway, it’s done, so let’s move on.

That last piece of puzzle is the gas line for the dryer in the laundry room and a wall heater in the bathroom. A few years back I planned for this so I have a ¾-inch T on the main gas line with a plug in it ready to go. It’s just under the floor. I would say it’s maybe 12 feet of pipe, another T, 2 elbows, and two valves. I predict 14 trips to the hardware store.

I probably won’t use the heater that is going in the bathroom very often. It is an old unvented radiant gas heater I bought on everyone’s favorite bottomless money pit called Ebay. It doesn’t meet code and I won’t use it that much, but if I put it in the wall I want it to work. It’s mostly eye candy, but it should at least function.

I’ll wait for someone to gasp in horror that I have an unvented natural gas appliance in the bathroom and then I’ll exclaim how I use it all the time and it’s the greatest thing in the world. I’ll then bend down and turn it on and watch as they bolt from the room with their hand covering their mouth and nose to escape the deadly emissions emanating form the appliance. Oh, what fun it’ll be.



That’s the heater in question. There are 3 ceramic radiant that go in the black area. I think it’s kind of neat. For real heat for the bathroom I want to put a “warm floor” under the tile. I’ve been looking a few models on line and they aren’t cheap. It’s just some wire and a programmable thermostat and they start around $500. At least the ones I looked at are they much. Oy! This bathroom is going to break me.