The first order of business was to pull up the shower pan. It should just pull up as there are no screw connections or fittings. It's just compression fit. Well, it didn't. So we drilled a couple holes and used a jig saw to cut around the drain and pulled the pan up and off. Yea, not were gettin' er done.
But wait something doesn't look right. The pipe under the shower drain has holes in it. Big holes. Like most of the pipe is gone. That's right it had rusted out and needed to be replaced. Not a problem you say. Just take the pipe out and replace it. The connection into the water trap looks a little funny. Oh my gosh. It's lead and the connection doesn't have threads. It's put together with hot lead.
Now we need a sawsall tool to cut and replace the entire trap. We did that of course in speedy time. Now all that's needed is a couple pipe wrenches to take the last part of the trap off the pipe that goes under the floor to the sewer. OK, were all set. Wrench under the pipe to keep it from twisting and wrench over the pipe to take the end off. Pull up. Push down. Hmmmm, this pipe is awful looses under the floor. The pipe had been cracked for years and was only held on to the sewer by a thread. By me fooling with it, it broke off to the sewer line. So what started as a simple project is now a full blown remodel adventure.
I began by breaking up the floor and getting to the problem area by scooping out the sand down to the broken connection. It was just as I thought. BAD. We still needed to get one end off the pipe to be able to put a new trap and drain on for the shower pan. Remember that far back. The least of my worries. Or so I thought. We stopped the destruction......aaaaa......repair for the weekend. I took the pipe with instructions about what I wanted to a machine shop. I wanted one end cut off and that end to be re threaded. Just a simple task don't you think. Well, the pipe turned out to be brass and had to be special cut then single point turned on a lathe for threading. What ever that means. It took them an hour and a half to do the job. Burned up two days, but was well worth the wait as the only other way to fix this was to replace the sewer line part which would shut down the other bathroom during the operation.
Anyway, got the pipe back, got the necessary things to repair the break, got the energy to get started, so we tackled the project with real enthusiasm. This was not your normal repair job. Do I do anything normal. With a little Louisiana ingenuity and some Nebraka "Get er done" mentality, I came up with a plan of repair instead of replacement. First use Gorilla glue on the pipe seam to set the pipe back in position. Let the glue dry over night. The next day wrap the sewer broken connection with twine and dump the remaining bottle of glue over the twine. When the glue was dry, cover the hole pipe and sewer with a tube of roofing tar. Then bury the whole mess with a bag of super strength concrete. I guarantee you that connection will not leak or move ever again. So just be careful when you ask old Dave to help with house repair. It could end up being a full blown adventure?
So what started as a simple bathroom remodel did indeed turn into a full blown adventure. It turned out good in the end. It actually drained water when I finished up. That's a good thing......right.....
