This post has been a looong time coming.. We have been working on the plumbing in the bathroom for some time now, a day here, a day there… but we’ve been pushing through these final stretches and we’re very nearly complete!
We didn’t have that much of a huge job to do with the plumbing. We needed to install new pipework to the new shower across the room, but otherwise we just needed to move both the basin pipes and bathroom pipes slightly. This was the general plan for the move…
It wasn’t a huge deal, which I was pretty glad about because the prospect of using fire in a room full of wood didn’t fill me with too much joy, particularly as we haven’t done this before. Call me paranoid Patricia! I should mention there were no fires, accidents, injuries or even anything close, so fear not 😉 We did however keep buckets of water close by, juuuust in-case! The job took the better part of an entire day, so we also filled up on water bottles to make sure we had water for our multiple endless supply of coffee throughout the day. We are coffee addicts!
To remove the floorboards, we specifically bought a multi-tool for the job; in particular the Worx Sonicrafter multi-tool. We popped out a fair amount of floorboards and numbered them on the underside with an arrow in which direction they they were laid (i.e. towards left wall). This will help to not to get muddled when putting them back!
To prepare for plumbing, I made sure to hoover up all flammable dust and sawdust sat in-between the floorboards, to which there was surprisingly a lot that had been left from previous work. It was also worth doing anyway to minimise dust for when we remove the ceiling in the room beneath.
We placed a bag beneath the pipework where we made the first cut so any water left in the pipes would pour into it.
As we removed all the piping, we also labelled the hot and cold pipes at their point of entry into the room. I could totally for-see Grant saying to me “which was the cold pipe again?”….
After much prep-work the real plumbing began! Initially we had bought this plumbing torch (pictured in the top photo) and it was just totally broken. At first it spat out liquid gas and then when it finally lit a flame, it wasn’t the blue flame we were after. Eventually after trying to figure it out, it stopped releasing gas altogether and wouldn’t light a flame at all! We stopped to research a bit and the consensus was that the brass torches are totally unreliable anyway and this torch was a total duff. We took it back and purchased this new one at only £8 more, which actually worked.
Grant did a few test practises on small pieces of copper and then moved on to doing the real deal. We planned it out so that Grant could do as much soldering as possible above the floor, and thus away from close contact with the wood. The soldering that he did have to do beneath the floor and close to the joists, we used a soldering mat to protect the wood. It worked pretty well because nothing got burnt! Hurrah! I’m afraid I have no photos to show beneath the floorboard work as I left the room, partly on Grant’s request “please don’t watch!” but actually I couldn’t bare watching anyway!
So the process of soldering is pretty simple, with just two steps prior to heating the copper:
- We cleaned both ends of pipe with steel wool, and also the inside of the fittings we were using.
- We then applied flux to each end and inside each fitting.
COSTS
(Rounded to nearest Pound)
New tools purchased:
(Minus the cost of the Worx Sonicrafter)
Pipe Cutter £9
Pipe Bending Spring £3
Torch £30
Soldering Mat £11
Materials Used:
Copper Pipe x2 £11
Pipe fittings (elbow, coupler & tee’s) £10
Flux and Solder Set £10
Gas Cylinder £4
Stop Cock £5
Steel Wool £4
Total Spent:
£97
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