Tag: chicago

Basement Plumbing Update

December 1, 2015 / / 1 Comment

One of the biggest frustrations with our project for the last several months has been the basement plumbing. First, it took us forever to get quotes from more than one plumber. Then we selected a plumber (not coincidentally one that gave us quotes fairly quickly) and gave them the initial deposit. The original estimate for work was about six weeks, which was over two months ago. Most of the work hasn’t been done yet and the source of delays has largely been the City of Chicago. We pulled our original permits three years ago with a different plumber. Because the permits were already pulled, the existing permit had to be reactivated and the plumber changed. Once that was done, they were able to put in the underground plumbing for the basement bathroom, the floor drain, and the utility sink, including the ejector pit. That was when they told me they were waiting on me to finish the weeping system, which I did.

Sewer work

New basement plumbing

At the same time, they scoped the sewer with a camera and submitted the recording to the City, who came back with a concern about the “tap”, or the connection between our sewer and the sewer main under the street. The plumbers ran another scope, after which the water department decided they wanted the tap repaired. Around this time they said that our other permit for the new water service was approved, but then they turned around and said that the whole project had a “red flag” on it because the original permits weren’t pulled properly. We didn’t get an explanation of what was wrong or how that happened, but the result was that no work could be done at all.

The plumbers reported that they were able to negotiate with the city and get the red flag lifted, and the last update is that we should finally have our permits today. Then the plumbers can finally schedule the tap repair, the new water service, and the sewer re-lining. At this point I’ve gotten a bit skeptical, but this is the most positive sign so far that something is actually going to happen before the ground freezes. The plumbing is the only thing we’re waiting on to pour the new basement floor.

Expected Plumbing

April 30, 2014 / / 0 Comments

We’ve encountered several plumbing projects since buying the house that were not part of our planned renovations but rather part and parcel of living in an old house. We had the pinhole leak in our hot water pipe, the replacement of our bathroom faucet, and the abrupt collapse of part of our kitchen drain, and I didn’t bother chronicling the recent kitchen faucet swap (the cheap faucet we bought when we moved in started leaking and we got a less cheap replacement). All of these were sudden and unexpected, but the basement drain problem was not. It had been progressively worsening for some time and we had been progressively ignoring it. Well, no longer.

Emily

Emily

Almost two weeks ago our daughter Emily was born (explaining the brief gap in new posts). We’re very excited to have her with us, but it means we’re back on the cloth diaper regimen, which brings me back to the basement drain. Let me explain how our sewer is set up. Our house has two sewer systems: the black water sewer that serves the toilet, tub, and bathroom sink and drains via 4″ cast iron pipe into the city sewer, and a gray water sewer for the kitchen sink and laundry that drains via a 2″ cast iron pipe, increasing to a 6″ clay pipe under the basement floor where it picks up a couple of floor drains before heading into the catch basin in the back yard, where it is joined by gutters and the patio drain. From there it can drain into the city sewer as well. Chicago is one of the bastion cities of combined storm and sanitary sewers. The catch basin is a combination grease trap and local water reservoir to help the city handle the water volume during heavy rains. So we have a manhole behind the back porch (under our grill) and a big brick vault about seven feet deep.

Starting at some point several (six?) months ago, when we ran the dishwasher or the washing machine, water would violently spray out of the top of the drain for the washing machine in the basement. To prevent this, I removed a small pvc screw plug from the basement floor. Now water didn’t spray out, it simply welled up out of the floor and drained to the other floor drain in front of the washing machine. This, in turn, also eventually filled and backed up. Then, during the melt from all the snow this past winter, water started to fill the landing at the bottom of the basement steps, about 6″ deep. Sarah put some bricks into the water to use as stepping stones to get into the basement. It was getting pretty bad.

Removed plug: better than spraying water

Removed plug: better than spraying water

I bought a drain snake, and then I bought a bigger one. As if the problems hadn’t been bad enough, because we’d now be washing cloth diapers, I really didn’t want the water backing up anymore. The water was also pooling at the base of our (very expensive) new hot water heater and I didn’t want it to start rusting.

Previously repaired connection

Previously repaired connection

I bought a cheap USB camera on a 45′ cable to try and figure out what was under the floor. I researched old Chicago sewer systems online. After running snakes down various pipes and floor drains for two days straight, Sarah cut off the already broken PVC fitting just above the floor while I rented a power drain snake from Home Depot. Having direct access to the clay pipe meant that I could now confirm my fear: the snake was pulling up thick, goopy, mud. That’s a fairly sure sign that the clay pipe under the floor has either separated or outright collapsed. Since I wasn’t prepared to start jack hammering the basement floor, I just snaked all the drains as well as I could, put together new PVC connections (including a clean out) at the base of the drain pipe, and called it a day.

New and improved connection

New and improved connection

So far, nothing has backed up since then, so our efforts were not entirely in vain. I still need to clean up all the mud down there. However, I’m not convinced that our current state will last as long as we were hoping. We’re planning to dig down the whole basement floor and replace all of the underground plumbing at the same time. My current timeline put that a ways out (aka years). It may turn out that we can’t wait that long.

Greenwash Hogwash?

March 9, 2012 / / 2 Comments

So, the biggest decision at the moment is whether or not we are going to go through the Chicago Green Home and/or LEED Home certification process.  Matt probably touched on this subject in previous posts, but it is turning out to be a much bigger deal than we had anticipated.  For one, the architect will charge more for going through the process than if we skip it, because the plans are much more complex for the certifications as is required.  And, adding in additional items to make the requirements of the certification will be more expensive.   In general, doing the Green Home and/or LEED certification costs more.  Much more than we thought that it would, unfortunately.

The question of the day is… Is it worth it?  We were planning on doing most of the energy conservation projects/upgrades anyway, so this process isn’t too much different from what we were planning on doing.   But, how much value DOES it actually bring to the table?  We dug around to see if we could get concrete numbers on how much more valuable a home is with the certifications vs. not, but the best that Matt could find was office building comparisons.  This particular type of building with a certificate is just too new to get an accurate sense of the value that it would be adding to our home.   Will buyers want LEED certified homes in ten years?  Or, is this just a fad that will mean little to nothing in the too near future?  We don’t know.

For now, we continue to get quotes from architects and dig through the internet to find out more information on what we are signing up for.  Because, in the end, we are doing this to make money – not spend it on unnecessary procedures.

And Then There Was Mother Nature

July 1, 2011 / / 2 Comments

As if the rats, roaches, ants, and flies weren’t enough…  Our dear Mother Nature decided today to put in her two cents.  As we were working on grouting the bathroom tiles at the new house, we started hearing a popping noise.  Matt thought that it was fireworks at first, but the sound was very close.  Like our front yard close.  I went to investigate and found that the popping noise was actually hail the size of golf balls hitting our porch awning.  It was literally raining ice balls within a minute and car alarms were going off up and down the streets around us.  One of the porch windows did not survive the hail, but it was a crappy window so we don’t mind too much.

Thank goodness our car was in the awful garage that came with the house.  I am ever so thankful for that POS garage right now after seeing the cars on our block.  We are not thankful for the gaping holes in said garage that allowed wind to knock siding onto our car tonight and dent the hood.  Poor car. 🙁