More Plumbing

We spent the weekend preparing the laundry room for Paul Pollets and our boiler installation, which should happen in about two weeks. Quite a lot needs to happen between now and then, and I feel as if we only made a dent in all of it this weekend.

I awoke early Saturday morning with a Plan. One of the many things that had been plaguing my thoughts was planned the location of the boiler. Or rather, the location of the washer, dryer, and utility sink, all of which had to move to accommodate the boiler. To move them, I’d have to move the associated plumbing to the opposite side of the room. My new plan would require that I install a smaller drain near the new boiler location, but I wouldn’t have to mess with the water for the sink or washer. I emailed Paul to let him know of this slight adjustment.

In retrospect I think the solution is obvious: move the boiler to the opposite side of the room, and leave the washer and dryer (and utility sink) where they are. In fact, we will gain a little space because now I can push the washer and dryer further into the corner of the room along the same wall, which is perfect.

Another minor issue with moving the boiler to the East wall is venting it. When it hung on the West wall, the plan was to vent out to the South, about 3 feet away through the joist bay. But on the East wall, the ideal path to the outside has a joist in the way. So the first thing I did (once Trissa was awake and out of bed) was cut off the offending joist and bridge it to the two joists on either side. Once the boiler is in, I’ll go back and add two supplemental joists on either side of the vent to help support the floor. Actually, the entire floor above will be getting ripped up when we demo the back porch to make room for the kitchen expansion. This may happen as soon as next weekend.

With the joist out of the way of the planned vent path, I turned my attention to the wall itself where the boiler will be hung. Previously the wall was firred out from the foundation with 2x2 sticks, and this really isn’t structurally solid enough for the weight of the boiler. Fortunately there was enough room that I could replace this section of wall with 2x4s, without changing the interior dimension of the room, or interrupting the continuity of the entire wall. I did have to do a little prep work to the floor though – this corner of the basement gets a little damp and the cement floor had deteriorated into gravel along the foundation. I dug this all out and mixed up a bag of quick-drying concrete, which I troweled into place. I’m glad we have a working sump in this corner, otherwise I think we’d see some flooding, which would be very very bad.

Once I completed the framing, I started working on the drain. Paul tells me that these condensing boilers produce a steady drip of water, and it needs to go somewhere. One option was to drip it into the sump, but I prefer the idea of just draining it directly into the sewer. The sump had a 1 ¼” drain pipe that did a funky dive under the slab, emerging 5 feet away and heading up, then down into the drain used by the washing machine. I decided to scrap this and route a new pipe through the stud wall and share it with the boiler. I bought a new hole-saw on one of our many trips to the HD this weekend, and it came in quite handy for threading the new 1 ½” ABS through the studs. This diameter pipe needs a ¼” slope per foot, so I first marked a level line across my studs, then marked the far end up 1 ¾” since it was a 7’ span. I used a chalk line to snap the slope, then used the hole saw to cut holes at the line in each stud. I also used the hole saw to create a route up through the ceiling for the auxiliary vent pipe needed for this drain. Pretty smooth.

All said and done, the new drain is in place and is hooked up to the sump. There’s a fitting on it to accept the boiler when that gets installed. I also installed a new drain line (2”) for the kitchen, along with its auxiliary vent.

Plumbing isn’t hard, but it sure takes a lot of fuss! This week I’ve got to run the gas line and water main to the boiler location – wish me luck.