Long Weekend = Lots of Work

This weekend Dan Allen camped out with us at the Chesterfield house. It was Dan's birthday this weekend and he decided to spend it working on our house. He is clearly a nicer man than I.
Let me start with that we are a bunch of Jack legs. I'm not really sure what that means means but I live in the south so I suppose I should using sayings that don't make sense at all. Maybe later on I can work something in that I can "shake a stick at".
In reality we did a fairly good job and everything we have done so far works well and is not a hazard in any way.
We started out this weekend with the goal of plumbing.  We wanted to get water to everywhere it needed to go upstairs and get the drains plumbed downstairs to the basement.

Below is the basement where we should have started.  We didn't.... but we should have.  We used 3/4 inch PEX piping to get the cold and hot water feed lines to upstairs. We put 1/4 turn valves in the basement so we can shut off the water to upstairs when we feel like it for future plumbing. PEX is awesome, anyone can do it. Putting clamping rings on plastic tube is soooo much better then trying to sweat copper pipes with solder.
We cut into the 4 inch cast iron drain line that goes to the street with a saw zaw and reduced the line that runs upstairs to a 3 inch line.

Cast iron is tough, however if you are going to cut it, we have only found one decent way. Milwaukee makes a blade called "The Torch" The blade was about shot from cutting through the 4 inch pipe twice, but that's all we needed it to do. This is an example blade not that one we used. ours was longer and costs about $17 at home depot. I was also very disappointed when my $9.99 saw zaw started smoking.  That harbor freight tool has actually been with my for quite a while.  Dan's real saw saw finished the job.

The floor cut away for the new plumbing.

The toilet plumbing

Shower plumbing

Sink plumbing

Vent pipe,
For those of you who do not know, the drain system in your house in vented to the roof. When you flush the toilet a rush of water is sent down the drain. It needs to be able to pull air from somewhere so the water can fall.  It's kind of like drinking from a plastic water bottle with your mouth all the way around the bottle top. (I know you have all tried it) The bottle starts to collapse because you have taken out water but have not allowed the water in the bottle to be replaced with air. Venting is a very important part of plumbing that can not be over looked.

The lighting is now functional and on switches and new wiring.

We were able to throw away all of the old electrical from upstairs... I don't miss you old wiring. Who ever thought it was a good idea to run electrical wires with cloth insulation through a metal jacket is a moron. Better yet after that they decided to terminate the wires in a metal box. I guess plastic wasn't invented back then?

The floor in the bathroom has been put back together. That was finished at nearly 11pm last night. Rock board and tile will cover all that is there at some point.

I also said I was post and update on the grass which is not great but doing better then it was. Yes, I know I need an edger. It's not perfect but compared to before there is more grass then you can shake a stick at < there it is!

I also wanted to give credit to my pregnant wife. Although she is not as active in the house construction now, she does keep us fed and do small jobs without complaining when she is asked. She has made sure that when we are done working that we have clean towels, clothing, and sheets to sleep on. We often times give her crap for doing nothing, but that's just to keep her on her toes. If we didn't give her any crap, who would?