So during the real cold weather, my windshield cracked in 3 nice places and there is a pretty spiderweb crossing the windscreen. Still with me? So, I get up this morning and was doing some running around, paying bills etc. I am at Menards looking at just about everything. I really only needed some tack cloth, some Poly Minwax, and some Zinsser stripper. And I ask the girl in the paint department if she might be interested in going on a date, denied! (actually I had asked another girl late last week if she wanted to go out, denied! and three months ago my girlfriend told me she wanted to be "alone") Well after embarrassing myself badly I forgot the tack cloth and stripper, but did get out with the polyminwax alive, and with some dignity.
Ok, so I come home and get ready to seal the door I have been working on the last few days (more on the later). I was able to get the first coat on one side with no issues. So while I am waiting for the first coat to dry, I jumped into the next project. The area where the washer and dryer hot/cold water pipes come down the wall in the basement were half-assed installed. And I was not looking for a cosmetic change, the pipe themselves were hanging, yes hanging and leaking. The walls in the basement are concrete and brick, and the piece of wood that was holding up the pipes, was also hanging and jury rigged badly in of itself. I took the nail gun and a piece of plywood, nailed that sucker to the concrete for a nice place to reconnect the pipes to the wall, one pipe is CPVC, and one galvanized. I rehung the CPVC, no problems. The galvanized? well the freaking pipe was rusted through and at the "T" joint it broke, water came flying out like a firehose was turned on, and the back half of me was soaked! I ran to the other end of the basement and turned off the water supply coming from the city. So there I am wet, pissed, and looking at what was going to cost me $70 to fix, that I don't have.
The first two pictures are what was installed for water pipes. Not! Now from the city, the water is copper, then goes to galvanized, then CPVC, then back to copper, then CPVC, and back and forth between 3/4" to 1/2" and everything in between. what a fucking mess. The first two pics are what was originally installed. In pic two where the pipe broke, see the "T" to the right of the dripping one? well more on that. So I am standing there, wet ( I think I said that already), got out the hack saw, and could not cut that pipe for nothing. Off to Home Depot (cause I did not want to show my face in Menards again today) bought a saw zaw ( $29.95) , some CPVC and misc. parts I thought I needed. Whip out the new tool and blast through the pipe in 10 secs flat. See that second "T" ? I put the pipe wrench on there and snap the CPVC connect that goes to the tub above. Right where the galvanized and CPVC pipes come together. Christ, back to the store. The guy at Home Depot was very help full, we were both sitting on the floor in the middle of the aisle with plumbing parts laid all over the place. People would start down the aisle with their carts, stop, look, turn around and go the way they came. Kind of funny, considering it has been a shitty week.
Now this is another learning experience, and I hate plumbing. CPVC and PVC are different. The diameters are different, 3/4" PVC is measured from the inside and 3/4" CPVC is measured on the outside. And nary the two shall fit. So back to the store for the third time! I mustered up the guts (the plumbing and paint Departments are next to each other) and went back to Menards luckly I found the exact parts I needed, without help. I headed home and gathered everything I had purchased and assessed the disaster area. Until I get this done, I am not taking a shower, that is what I assessed.
Below is what I was able to cobble together. So far no leaks. The little stub with two 90 degree elbows was originally galvanized with CPVC attached to the upper part, that is what snapped off and resulted in the second trip to the store.
Zinsser, let me talk a bit about the brand of new stripper I found. This stuff is great! No smell, doesn't burn your skin if is gets on you and the clean up is great. It kind of sucks all the paint up, and makes a congealed paste out of the paint and old varnish. What I also found best about the product is that it really gets into the cracks creavasess of the trim and lifts the paint out and makes it kind of fluff up. There is no extra scraping that I have to do and no use of dental tools to get the left behind paint out of the cracks. Very cool and I highly recommend. One of the few bright spots this week.
