New Shoes 2

I've known for a while that I'd need new work boots eventually. I don't know how many years ago I went down to Sears and picked up an inexpensive pair of steel-toe work boots. These boots have been out to Habitat countless times, lots of home-improvement projects here, four Mexico mission trips, and who knows what else.

The treads wore off a long time ago. The toe on one wore through to the steel some time back. They're covered in concrete, caulk, a variety of adhesives, and a lot of plain old dirt.

But the final straw was when I went past wearing off the tread and actually wore through the sole. I noticed it when I stepped on some gravel, and could feel the texture with my foot. Hmm, not a good sign. Then one of the laces broke, and it was past time.

I'd stopped by Sears in Oakland, but they didn't have my size in steel toe. Or at least they couldn't find it. Nice people there, but I don't think they know their store very well. So yesterday I stopped by Sears in Pleasanton since I was in the area for a trip to RLC and lunch with my friends Pete and Jim, and got what I wanted with a minimum of fuss for $34.98 plus tax.

I was going to pick up a pressure valve from my friend Rob at church for the DWV line inspection, but I found out that I can do either 5 lbs. of air pressure or a 10 ft. column of water. The latter is easier to find leaks with (not that I expect any with ABS and its gnarly adhesive), and I have what I need, so I'll do that.

Unfortunately the next available inspection isn't until next Monday, the 10th. Quite a bit longer than the first time, and than what I was planning on. There's other stuff I can do to keep busy, like pre-frame some of the walls, but it'd be nice to have that large space of the floor decking to work on. Oh well. There's more work to be done at Camron-Stanford House, apheresis again on Tuesday, and countless other tasks around the house that need doing. Like cleaning up the construction detritus in the basement. Not too long ago I had a nice work space there. Hmm...maybe I can try rescheduling for an earlier time :-) Or maybe I'll go out to Habitat. I haven't been out to the work site for a while, and I've been meaning to go back out.

Yesterday had some interesting other stuff besides new boots and lunch. When I stopped by RLC, I heard the office manager talking to someone about "blah, blah, fire marshal". Fire marshal? Hmm...as a lot of the sound and video equipment there is at least partly my responsibility, and the sound booth has a mess of cords to catch a fire marshal's eye, I asked what it was about.

No problems in the sound booth (I'd wired some new 4 plug outlets there so we didn't have chains of power strips plugged in to other power strips, a definite no-no), but this fire marshal is a bit more particular than the last. Instead of "no flammable materials" in the furnace room, he wants "no materials", period. As storage at church is pretty limited, there was plenty in there: ladders, folding chairs, tables, shelves with random bits and pieces (need some somewhat worn maps of the Holy Land?), and a large pull-down projection screen. Apparently that was purchased back when they started the contemporary service, and they used it for a while for projecting overheads of lyrics. But it had to be off to the side where nobody could see it easily, so it got taken down and stored. Anyways, I spent the next hour finding new homes for the things stored there, and got stuff cleaned up to what will hopefully be the fire marshal's satisifaction. But know anyone who needs a 10' wide pull-down projection screen?

I don't think the cleanup made any difference to safety, but one thing sure did: I found two extension cords in the janitor's closet that were hazards at best. One had the covering torn at the plug, so just the wires were holding it together. The other had the 3rd prong (the safety ground) broken off. Some people do that because they don't have a 3-prong adapter for a 2-prong outlet, but it creates a major safety hazard. The kind where people end up injured or dead. So I threw out those two cords, and bought a new one at the nearby OSH.

Then last night I went to Rooster's Bar in Alameda to take some pictures of a friend's band. Kautz plays guitar at RLC some Sundays and is a pretty good guy, so I took pictures of the band and will be designing a web site for them. Know anyone who has gigs for a talented heavy metal band? They had a gig after the shoot, but unfortunately they weren't going to be on for a couple of hours. And the bar was charging a $7 cover charge. I was pretty sure I didn't want to sit and listen to hours of heavy metal music, even if the bar does have Lagunitas IPA on tap.

And finally, to keep the people who want more pictures on the blog happy, we have a nice shot of the water supply lines. Kat envisioned it, but I took while she was at work. A nice composition for something otherwise pretty mundane.

Drain, Drain, Go Away

Yesterday I made a brief attempt at fixing the last leak, but I decided I was going to have to just redo that fitting and the nearby one. In the afternoon it was off to the Red Cross for apheresis. I watched Ocean's Twelve, the sequel to the remake of the 1960 film, Ocean's Eleven. Not a bad movie, but disappointing after the first one, which did a pretty good job of capturing the essence of the original even if they didn't have the "Rat Pack". I always wonder about movie remakes. If the original was great, why remake it? I know, I know...because they don't have any original ideas anymore. What will they remake next? Casablanca?

I started today by disassembling the problem fittings, which took longer than anticipated because there was some water lurking in the pipes. But I got things apart, prepped the new fittings, sweated things, and voilà! It worked first try. Thanks, Jim. You're a good teacher. But my skills will probably be rusty again by the time I'm ready for working on the plumbing again, so don't go anywhere just yet.

After lunch I worked some more on roughing in the DWV system. I'd drawn out how things were supposed to go, but when you actually get to putting pipes in place, dealing with the proper slope (1/4" per foot), various obstacles like floor joists, water supply lines, and the foundation, it gets to be a lot trickier. Oh, and of course you need to start and end up at all the right points. Since I have the main sewer line out of the addition in a fixed location through the foundation wall, that end has to be exact.

I also needed to figure out how to cut the 4" DWV pipe. It was too big to fit in my chopsaw, and I'm not that accurate with a Sawzall, so I ended up building a miter box big enough to hold the 4" pipe. And then made the cuts I needed with hand saw. A lot slower than the chop saw, but it got the job done.

I got all the runs and changes figured out, but needed to make YAHDR (Yet Another Home Depot Run), which was only partly successful. They were out of 4" connectors to join two pipes together, so I'll have to make a visit someplace else to get one when I'm out tomorrow. But there are drain lines from the shower, sink and toilet now. They just need one more fitting, and gluing together, and I'll be ready for an inspection!

One Drip, One Run, Some Errors

Today I pressure-tested the water supply lines that I finished sweating on Saturday after Jim left. Not surprisingly, there were some leaks. After some cycles of drain the lines, re-sweat the leaky joints, turn on the lines, repeat I began to suspect that there was too much water still in some of the lines because the solder wasn't flowing the way it should. Jim suggested I cut out one of the problem sections and re-do as much as I could off-site, then install it. That worked like a charm, and the cold water supply line is now at pressure -- woohoo! There's still one small leak in the hot water supply line, but I'm confident I can fix that tomorrow.

I also laid out the DWV (drain waste vent) pipes, though I had to make a run down to the local ACE hardware for a couple of fittings (and some more solder for the water supply line fixes I was making). But I should be able to get the plumbing rough-in and floor framing inspected this week, and start moving foward with the floor decking and walls!

Plumbing and More Pictures

Jim came and helped me with the plumbing today as planned. I felt a little guilty about asking for his help (again), but then I remembered that I spent all yesterday afternoon helping at Camron-Stanford House, a volunteer reference Jim hooked me up with. It can be very tiring, as I've blogged about before, so now I don't feel so bad about asking for Jim's help.

Jim and his wife Brigitte came after lunch, and Jim made short work of the connections to the existing plumbing that had been giving me trouble. His sweated joints may not be the most beautiful, but they held the first time we tried turning on the water. Which is a lot more than I can say for an annoyingly large percentage of the joints I've sweated.

Below are some more pictures of the progress so far.







And for good measure, here's a picture of my neighbor Cynthia's (she helped during the concrete pour) cat Fritz. He was waiting in our driveway for some attention when I went next door to take the picture from above.

Pictures, Plumbers and Pastors

I was told I wasn't posting enough pictures, so here you go. I still want to get a shot from above of the floor framing and plumbing, but this is a start. It's the addition wearing its raincoat (and more often fog and pine needle coat). It won't keep off a serious rain, but it keeps most of the water and pine needles out.

Today I worked on the plumbing some more, but I realized yesterday that sweating pipes is not my strong suit. I can do it when there's lots of room and only a few connections, but those "last connections" where things are tight and there's multiple joints to sweat give me fits. Fortunately my good friend Jim agreed to come give me a hand (again -- he helped me out back when I was remodeling the bathroom, and dielectric unions were giving me fits).

Jim is one of those interesting people who's been a number of things in his life. He doesn't have a lot of formal education, but he's very intelligent and has a lot of different experiences, so he's a jack-of-all-trades and master of many. I'm feel like I'm more of a dilettante in comparison. Jim once made his living as a plumber, and besides having taught me about the wonders of Wonder Bread, he's taught me other valuable lessons about being a plumber: shit runs down hill, and pay day is on Friday. So there you go -- now you've begun your education as a plumber, too. A lot of the rest is fairly easy, but sweating pipes well is the work of an artist. Jim is definitely an artist. Just check out his photography.

I just realized there might be some confusion about Jim. The above refers to a different Jim than Pastor Jim who helped me during the concrete pour. Though Pastor Jim has been a number of things in life, too: raisin farmer, electrical parts salesman, and pastor, that I know of. Come to think of it, I think he was singing and playing guitar when he and his wife Nancy met.