Plumbing the depths

So the plumbers came over last night. This is a big step. They were actually very cool guys and I liked them right off. They didn't try to make the job sound easier than it seemed like it should be, and more importantly, didn't try to make it harder than it should be. The last plumber we had out made it sound like one of the labors of Hercules to move a drain two feet, and wanted between $3-4K to do so. That's part of why we were so wary about bringing someone else out. What if that was low? What if it ended up being more? It can get pretty scary.

So anyway, we had the guys out. They took a look at everything in the master and the hooby room where we plan to steal the closet space. They looked in the basement and on the main floor under the master bath. They took measurements, drew things out on graph paper, confirmed with us what we wanted, told us what they had been seeing in other homes, especially newer, higher-end homes. It was a good experience overall.

This is what we decided. We can't properly fit a large tub, two sinks and a "throne room" (our realtor called it a water closet, I call it a toilet room) in the space without extending out past the window in the master or farther into the hobby room. We don't want to do that if we can help it. We want a nice big bathroom, but we really don't want to give up our nice big master bedroom to get it. So, we're going to change the big tub for a big shower. It'll be smaller, more flexible, and certainly something we'll get more use out of. We have a tub on the top floor already, so that won't be an issue. We can also make a really fancy shower in there. Body sprays, a bench, two shower heads, pretty much whatever we want. I know there are people out there who won't live in a house without a tub in the master suite, but I'm imagining they're less common now than they used to be. Who has time to soak in the tub anyway? If they really want to, they can go soak in the tub in the hall bath without any problems. So there you go. That's what we've decided and we're sticking with it.

Anyway, on to other things. You know how I said we went to the basement? Well when we were down there, the plumber noticed our water heater.

Um...what's that down there at the bottom?

Leaking water? Oh come on!

Yeah, the water is coming from the top. He taught us a bit about water heaters, which was neat. Most water heaters will rust out and fail near the bottom. That's the catastrophic failure that floods your basement. That happens from too many heat cycles, the plumber told us. Heat cycles are when the water in the tank cools down too much and you have to crank the heat back up to warm it up again, or more importantly (from what I gathered) when you have people using hot water all at the same time. This is not what happened here. The water coming from the top is a result of bad water. Hard water, specifically. It eats away at the metal in the pipe through some kind of chemical process. I don't understand it, I just know that my water tastes like chlorinated feet. So now we need a new water heater. An expense we hadn't planned on, of course.

Still, it presents an opportunity, as so many of these things do. We can install a cool thing that will give us instant hot water whenever we want it, and be more water and gas efficient. A tankless water heater, you say? NO! Why do you have to be so wrong all the time? It's a tanked water heater with a pump thingy on it! The pump is on a timer, so you set it for the morning before you wake up. It gets to work pumping hot water into the pipes so you have hot water ready right when you need it. There's a crossover pipe that dumps the stream from the hot water pipe into the cold water pipe when the hot water pipe gets too cold. Savvy? There's a piece of pipe connecting the two (usually at the farthest point from the heater) and it will open when the water temperature drops below a certain point. So when your hot water gets tepid, it travels back through to the water heater to be warmed back up again. This is more efficient since you're raising water from "not warm enough" to hot instead of from "fresh from the mountain lakes" to hot. At least, that's what it sounds like. I'm not entirely sure how it works yet, but it sounded promising.

Also, I did a touch more painting. Not much, but just enough so we can hang our curtain and maybe see whether the patch I did will hold up under semi-gloss paint.

Meh? Not sure yet. It will need another coat, I think. I'm hoping it works out, and it looks sort of okay than it did before.

So anyway, that's what's up. I'm hoping to do some work on the floorplan for the bathroom and post that up here so you can see what I'm thinking about. Thanks for reading!