Tag: gas line

Plumbing Move

May 22, 2015 / / 0 Comments

There are a few drawbacks to living in a house while you remodel it. It takes longer, it’s more complicated, and you often have to spend time on temporary solutions to keep things operational. In this case, the water heater and laundry in the basement needed to be moved up to the first floor so the basement dig out can continue.

Basement water heater and laundry

Basement water heater and laundry

We installed the water heater back in August of 2013. At the time we were getting everything disconnected from the chimney so we could redo the subfloor on the first floor. When we decided to do things the right way and do the basement first, we had to reshuffle things. We considered disconnecting everything and moving out for a few months, but instead we just moved the water heater to the first floor temporarily and rerouted the plumbing. I even managed to hook up the laundry, so we don’t have to go to the laundromat for the next several months.

Relocated to first floor

Relocated to first floor

Getting gas, electric, water, and venting run was a task, but I simplified it by using PEX tubing and quick connect fittings for the plumbing. PEX isn’t code in Chicago, but this isn’t permanent so I’m not too worried about it. Once the new basement floor is done we can move it all back into the basement. I took off a few days from work this week and got everything set up on the first floor for about $150 in materials. The whole house water filter had to get disconnected, but because of how we plumbed it we were able to just bypass it with a few valve turns.

Old sewer connection
Sewer connection repaired
Kitchen drain connected

The next step was to fix the drainage. The long-gone basement bathroom had been badly spliced in where the cast iron stack connected to the vitrified clay sewer line. I repaired that connection with a section of PVC and a rubber gasket. I had to cut out the cast iron and the broken clay. I did both with a diamond grit reciprocating saw bit. Don’t waste your time on the carbide bit. That thing is crap, just spend the extra few dollars. Once that connection was made, I redirected the drain from the kitchen (and laundry) into the main sewer instead of the collapsed line that goes to the catch basin and backs up all the time. When we replace the underground sewer line this will get changed again, but for the time being we don’t have water all over the floor and noxious sewer gas leaking in the basement, which is nice.

Everything removed

Everything relocated

Finally, with everything moved and rerouted, I took up the last section of concrete floor.

Concrete removed

Concrete removed

Now we can finish the dig out! We have nine days left with the mini-excavator before our month is up and we have to return it, so we’ve got to press on and get this thing done! It’s looking like one more dumpster after this one should finish things up, or roughly 2 concrete dumpsters and 4 dirt dumpsters total (plus the 2 debris dumpsters from the garage and back porch demo). It’s been a busy Spring.

Gas Line Re-Route

June 15, 2012 / / 4 Comments

Gas line

The gas lines in the basement are predictably terrible. Like everything in the house they were done right at some point and then redone wrong later. Like so much that we’ve done, we’re doing them less wrong temporarily and we’ll do them brand new later.

Let’s see if I can describe the situation. The gas main comes in at the front of the house and goes to the meter. There used to be two meters, but one of them was removed at some point. From the one meter, three lines branch off and go to the same general area at the back of the house: one for the boiler, one for the dryer, and one that feeds the hot water heater and stove for the second floor. From where the other meter used to be, a line goes back and connects to the hot water heater and stove for the first floor, as well as a line that feeds the long-disconnected gas lamps that predate electricity in the house. Since the second meter is disconnected, that line is tied into the line that services the second floor, but they left the whole thing connected. Finally, from one of the water heaters a line branches off to provide gas to where the basement stove used to be as well as a capped line to the basement living room where we guess there may have been a space heater. The boiler line is 1″ pipe that reduces to 3/4″. The rest is all 3/4″ except for the basement apartment lines that are done in 1/2″.

The two lines that connect to the hot water heaters and stoves run along either side of the beam in the basement. Since we’re replacing the beam we need to remove these gas lines. That was the project for last Sunday. I asked Dean for assistance, since every time I went into the basement to look at the gas lines I just got overwhelmed and did something else. I bought a bunch of fittings and some metal cutting blades for the angle grinder and reciprocating saw and we got started.

Undaunted

Dean was decidedly not overwhelmed and in no time we had the gas shut off and were using my angle grinder to cut out the old sections of pipe. Once cut, we used some pipe wrenches to disconnect the either side. I had a rough plan that we used to tap off the line servicing the boiler and connect it to the water heater and stoves.

Dean had borrowed a pipe threader that we used to make the appropriate lengths from the pipe we had removed.   With some elbows, thread compound and valves I had bought, we assembled the new connections. We also removed the gas line that went to the basement living room and disconnected the line supplying the old gas lamps.

New connections

The result fed gas to all the same appliances with a minimum of new pipe. I removed the two lines that ran along the beam and everything worked without any leaks. As an added bonus, the new line had valves that can shut off individual segments without having to turn off the gas at the meter.

 

Gas line-free Beam

I still have an electrical conduit to move that also runs along the beam, but other than that we’re looking pretty good for getting our structural work done. On top of that the basement actually smells better!