Follow Our Progress
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November 12th
2003
Today was another good day with lots of progress on the bus. We
decided to spend most of the day working on roughing in the plumbing.
Emily came down with a cold. She's all stuffed up but seems to
be handling it well so far. She made it through the day with a
short nap. We'll see how she's doing tomorrow. If she's any
worse, Becky will end up staying home with her while I work on the bus
alone.
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We made a final decision on the location for the hot water
heater, so I went to work transferring the location to the
outside and cutting away as much of the siding of the bus as
possible.
It's actually kind of fun for me. I get to play with
the Sawzall and make more big holes in the side of the bus.
I drill from the inside of the bus to the outside to get the
general location. Then I transfer the measurements to the
outside of the bus using the holes as a guide and cut out as
much as I can with the jig saw.
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The jig saw cuts through the siding and the insulation, but
misses the inside paneling by about 1/8-1/4 of an inch.
Once I have most of the outside paneling cut away, I drill
some holes in the 4 corners large enough for the Sawzall blade
to fit through.
I could do the whole process in one step with the Sawzall,
but I prefer to see exactly what I am going to be cutting
through.
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The last step is to haul out the Sawzall and cut through the
inside wood paneling and and any metal that the jig saw couldn't
make it through.
The Sawzall makes very quick work of just about anything in
it's path... It has become one of my favorite demolition
tools <grin>
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After a bit of tweaking on the hole the hot water heater slid
through the hole from the outside and sat perfectly on our 2x4
spacers.
The 2x4 spacers represent the bottom of the cabinets that
will be there. The bottom of the cabinet is 3" off
the floor and 1/2" thick, so a 2x4 which is actually
3&1/2" works to make sure that we leave the
correct gap.
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The heater looks pretty good from the outside. It will
blend in once we paint the bus white.
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Once we had the water heater in place, I couldn't help but rough
in the drains and supply lines for the sinks, shower and toilet.
We did a bit of reading about the rough in process. Of
course, we had to make a few modifications for the bus
installation since we do not plan to have as large of cabinets
as a standard house...
I installed an air valve between the kitchen and bathroom
sinks. If someone drains all of the water out of the
bathroom sink and starts a siphon, there is a chance that air
could be drawn in the P trap of the kitchen sink. The air
valve prevents a break the water seal which would allow the gray
water tank gasses (i.e. nasty smell) to come out the kitchen
sink drain.
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The biggest surprise for me was learning that the
fall (slope) for the drains should be 1/4 of an inch per foot of
travel. Apparently if the fall is too steep, the water
outruns the solid waste in it and leaves it behind in the
pipes. If we can ever get the bus level, we might actually
have a working drain system <grin>.
The bathroom plumbing connects to the kitchen, so all I had
to do was pop it through the wall .
The long black pipe along the wall is the common drain for
both the kitchen and bathroom |
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We didn't have a coupler for the drain line, so
I'll need to stop at the home improvement store on the way to
the bus tomorrow.
The supply lines go along the walls of the bathroom, behind
the toilet and under the shower stall.
The drain for the shower will come from behind the toilet and
meet up with the gray water vent stack on the under side of the
bus. |
We worked until pretty late tonight. Tomorrow will be a much
shorter day, but I would like to see the gray water tank put in place
and all of the drains connected to the vent stack. It's a big
job. If I am by myself tomorrow I don't think I can lift the gray
water tank in place and attach it, so I might have to work on something
else instead... |
