Chapter 16 - Does Anyone Know a Good Plumber?

I’m sure by know you’re getting the idea that we’re trying to put as much sweat equity into this project as we can by doing as much of the work ourselves without calling in the subs. However, I’ve never had much success with plumbing before, so I thought it best to have the pros handle this task…or so I intended. You’ll get the idea as I explain further…
You might recall from an earlier chapter that the home was built before the utilities (water, sewer & natural gas) came into the area. Water came from a well in the back yard, which was broken, and which we needed to abandon and connect to the water authority’s line in the street in order to subdivide the huge yard in two. I did a lot of research and work on this before purchasing the home, so right after tax season ended I went looking for a plumber to bring water and natural gas to the home…yes, that’s right, way back in May! Again, more to explain…
The utility companies dug up the street and brought their lines over to the house on the garage side. A lot of concrete was in the way, so I rented a jackhammer that I swear weighted more than I did, and broke up the driveway…I almost died! I was so excited when the plumber’s came right out afterwards and dug a short trench around the back yard to bring the water pipe into the house…we seemed to be moving forward at a good pace…but that’s where our excitement ended. You know the saying “when the cat’s away, the mice will play?” The kids were both out of school for the summer, so we took a family vacation in June and left specific instructions for the plumber’s and carpenter’s to do while we were gone…but alas, NOTHING was accomplished while we were gone. In July, Mitzi and I went back East for a week, myself to attend a woodworking class and Mitzi to visit her family. Again, NOTHING was done by the subs while we were gone! Work finally did resume in August and was moving along at a good pace, however we had to leave town one more time to move Stephanie to LA…BAD MOVE!!!
We were only gone for a day and a half, more than enough time it proved for tragedy to happen. In an attempt to make up for lost time, the plumber’s decided to take a short cut when running the natural gas pipe into the kitchen, so they notched the floor joists for the second floor to run their pipe through…21 consecutive floor joists! The bldg code doesn’t allow floor joists to be notched under any circumstances, let alone 21 consecutive beams. The structural engineer was called in to engineer a repair. Needless to say, we never took our eyes off the plumber’s again. (You won’t believe it, but I actually caught them trying to notch another floor joist later and had to stop them again.)
By Sept 1st, I was totally out of patience as very little work had actually been accomplished by the plumber’s, so I took it on myself to install the bathtubs and showers myself (Mitzi helped me set one of the tubs too). When the plumber’s came by the next day and saw that we had done all of that work ourselves in just two days, well lets just say it motivated them. One week later and everything was done and our inspection passed. Yeah!
We’re excited about the bathrooms! We haven’t selected all of our new finishes yet, but we’ve definitely got some ideas in mind. Hopefully you’ll agree too. We’re most excited about the master bath. There’s a new Jacuzzi tub to go in the corner, and the shower is going to absolutely soak some lucky one with four body sprays, a shower head, and a rain head directly over the bather…how awesome is that?! We’ve got the cement board and green board up in all of the bathrooms around the showers and tubs. We’re just waiting now on the drywall installation so that we can focus on cabinets, etc.