Friday, January 11, 2008

Why, yes, it has been raining a lot

I spotted some beautiful evidence that it's been wet recently, growing in our backyard. The ferns are normal for winter, but mushrooms this brightly colored are not.

Working a shorter and less frantic day than Monday, yesterday I removed the galvanized pipes on the hot water line and replaced them with copper. Today I ran pipe from the valve I installed yesterday to the washer and laundry sink on the hot water side. I had to re-do the valve as it leaked on the off side, so I got less done today than I'd have liked. That leaves:
  • washer and laundry sink on the cold water side
  • laundry sink to outside faucet
  • old bathroom cold water to toilet and sink
  • old bathroom hot water to sink
But apart from a short stretch where the water line enters the house up to the pressure regulator, all the plumbing is now copper (well, or bronze for some of the fittings). Woohoo!

One thing I did when replacing the main water line was install a 1/4 turn ball valve for a shut off inside the basement. There's an old gate or compression valve for the shut off on the outside of the house, but it's not in the greatest shape. Having an easy to turn on and off valve in the basement has been a big time saver -- no more running around the house to shut off the water, back to the basement and work, turn the water on, back to the basement to test for leaks, back to the valve to shut it off, etc.

3 comments:

Sandy said...

I am always amazed at someone who knows how to do plumbing! Ewww on the mushroom (although it was a pretty color).

Joanne said...

The mushroom's pretty cool. It's an Amanita muscaria, the classic fairy tale mushroom. I'd love to have them popping up in my yard!

Unknown said...

Thanks for the ID! It's not just a mushroom, Amanita muscaria sounds like the 'magic' sort ;-) but on the deadly end. Reading the side-effects, I can't imagine why anyone would consume it.