Now that the wall framing was up, it was time to start installing everything that goes inside the framing. That means electrical and plumbing lines, and in my case, data cables and fire sprinkler piping. Rough service work begins with locating where you want to put stuff. That way a I could look at the installation instructions and actually do measurements if I needed to, and b the fixtures all matched. It cost quite a bit up front, but at least that expense is taken care of!
So, I went ahead and marked where I wanted the toilet, sink, and shower drains and water supplies to go. Now, I had to learn plumbing. All fixtures and parts for the bathrooms, plus the toilet and sink for the MBR bathroom. The rest of the parts for the bathrooms. I also bought all of the tile at once to make sure I had it from the same run.
Lots of stuff to warehouse! As a chemical engineer and as an engineer on a nuclear sub, I figured I could deal with the technical aspects of a residential plumbing job. I had to review the relevant codes to make sure I was in compliance, but then I figured, how hard can this be?
I was about to find outโฆ. I decided to start with the toilet drain because it was the largest pipe and I found out I would have to be doing some tricky routing through the joists, which I had previously tripled to shore up the master bedroom floor structure.
These extra thick joists turned out be be troublesome because the pipe had to be angled to get the slope correct and the hole saw that I was using was only slightly larger than the OD of the pipe. I eventually hammered it in but getting that last joint together was a bitch! Toilet drain piping. See the tripled joists surrounding the pipe? I had to drill big holes through those and ram the piping in!
