OT - What are you doing right now?

kl8ton

Who will spend more? 

@Ozzie_Isaac on his outdoor cooking space

Or

@SamIAm2 on his plumbing

Alot of $$$ signs in those two posts.  I envy one and not the other.  Godspeed @SamIAm2

Edit:  I feel for you.  I think our septic is failing. I know it is.  I have access to sewer via an easement.  I have to hook to city water though.  I own the neighboring property that needs sewer too. 30k each and I don't know how much the water fee will be.  It was 60k for a larger parcel we own.  That's just the payment to the municipality.  I still have to pay a company to get it done.  

alaskanassasin

@kl8ton what the heck is 30k? $500 in pipe and a mini excavator for the weekend and you are rolling. What and I missing 

alaskanassasin

I loved doing jobs like these. Materials were cheap and you get to name your price. The one with the tools makes the rules 

kl8ton

alaskanassasin said:

@kl8ton what the heck is 30k? $500 in pipe and a mini excavator for the weekend and you are rolling. What and I missing 

30k is just what needs to be paid to the municipality for the privilege of connecting.  

alaskanassasin

kl8ton said:

alaskanassasin said:

@kl8ton what the heck is 30k? $500 in pipe and a mini excavator for the weekend and you are rolling. What and I missing 

30k is just what needs to be paid to the municipality for the privilege of connecting.  

Wow! 

alaskanassasin

A new septic and leach field should be cheaper than that 

kl8ton

alaskanassasin said:

kl8ton said:

alaskanassasin said:

@kl8ton what the heck is 30k? $500 in pipe and a mini excavator for the weekend and you are rolling. What and I missing 

30k is just what needs to be paid to the municipality for the privilege of connecting.  

Wow! 

Right?  But I can't get a permit to install a new septic system because sewer is available.  I can't hook to sewer unless I'm already hooked to city water. 

SamIAm2

Hah! @kl8ton that made me laugh. Pretty sure @Ozzie_Isaac probably spent more than me, but on reflection maybe not. Of course he still has time to make more upgrades to his project.

Don't think I want to be the winner here. Truth be told, this is only the second part of a long saga. In 2018 I paid for the exterior sewer line conversion to PVC from cast iron to a company who will be unnamed and never contacted again. 

The next big hit will be the tile replacement for which I already have a quoted price. With the tile and plumbing price for this part the amount equals the cost for the exterior sewer line work. OUCH. Like my egging neighbor says it's only money and it is yours to spend. 

Thanks @lousubcap. I appreciate a submariner's comment to an ex target ship sailor.  The narrative is important to me and hopefully anyone else who might have CI in their home sewer system. It has been a frustratingly long time since we found out there was a problem an it is also my way of letting off steam.

When the plumbing is done, the concrete is put back, and the tile work is complete, my work to put things back as they were will be minor, A little drywall repair, repainting, and then putting all the cabinets back where they belong and then returning their previously stored contents to them. It will keep me busy for a bit longer and I can finally put that out of my mind.

alaskanassasin

I can imagine with all your kids the septic is working double time. Are you not in city limits or something? Just curious what the reason is for the expensive tap fee

kl8ton

alaskanassasin said:

I can imagine with all your kids the septic is working double time. Are you not in city limits or something? Just curious what the reason is for the expensive tap fee

Not in city limits.  There is a new subdivision bordering our property.  It has sewer.  We can tap to that.  It's BS. They won't let us make payments either because previous owners did not take that option when initially offered. 

alaskanassasin

There are guys who can flush and clean leach lines fwiw. We had that done in a house we sold so I don’t know how long it lasted but hopefully you can get your system repaired.

Ozzie_Isaac

@SamIAm2 I do not envy that undertaking at all. We are on a slab here too, and I often wonder what we would do if we had to fix something in the slab. The newer homes with post tension slabs are even harder to deal with. One thing I liked about my Midwest homes was access to all the utilities. Rewiring, running new water lines, cat5e, network cables, etc with attics, basements, and crawl spaces is child's play.

@kl8ton we have similar fees here. $10K connection fee to the county water and new well permits are almost impossible, not to mention well depth needs to be 500+ ft in my area, so that isn't cheap even if you can get a permit. Septic permits are not difficult though. Our soil drains really well, so they aren't to bothered by those.

For everyone wondering about cost. I try not to think about it. I do know the entire project is costing more than my first house. However, that isn't to hard these days with the cost of materials and difficulty finding good contractors. We interviewed 5 contractors, 3 of which we went so far as to have designs drawn up. We also had a separate designer draw up plans as part of an overall vision for our house. We really struggled to find something we liked. Mostly they wanted to drop a rectangular pool right off the patio. The back fenced portion of our yard is 1/4 acre, and they treated it like a 20x40 neighborhood yard. In the end I wound up drawing it all out and giving it to the contractor. Easier to put my vision to paper than keep trying to explain it.

I will say, it is significantly larger than it looked on paper, even when I had paced things out and did a lot of painting lines in the yard. Dealing with the flood plain has made it all even trickier. I am thankful I work from home right now, because every single day I have adjustments, corrections, and feedback on aspects of it. It makes me wonder who watches over spec houses that are built in master planned communities.

@Eggdicted_Dawgfan the cone is balancing on some rebar sticking out of the ground.  I walk around and put caps and covers on all the rebar.  I let my dogs out back after they leave and they play rough.. Don't want them getting impaled.

On the topic of dogs, they are used to being outside for most the day.  With them being cooped up inside now, and not much area to run once the go outside, they are going completely bonkers.  2 Aussies and 2 Jack Russells are not meant to be inside a house.  They are running me batshit crazy.

For scale, that outdoor kitchen footing is 14.5' by 21'.

Ozzie_Isaac

Just some @SamIAm2 doesn't feel alone, here is the stub out for my sink drain I put in this evening.  The original design they quoted didn't have a sink.  So I am saving 0.12% by running the water line to the BBQ and dealing with the drain.  I am putting in a dry well out past the fence, so the piece on the left is just so I can locate the end to add flexible drain tile later.  The piece on the right is the sink drain. I wanted it completely hidden once it is done.

Luckily, I have friends with equipment, so trenching and running the drain tile will not be to hard.

fishlessman

30k to hook up the city sewer line. i would just save it all in 5 gallon buckets in the yard.  before anyone asks, yes i know someone that did just that....to lazy to dig an outhouse but had an unlimited supply of buckets. strange guy, built high end bars in bar harbor maine and did fancy sheet rock work

Ozzie_Isaac

fishlessman said:

30k to hook up the city sewer line. i would just save it all in 5 gallon buckets in the yard.  before anyone asks, yes i know someone that did just that....to lazy to dig an outhouse but had an unlimited supply of buckets. strange guy, built high end bars in bar harbor maine and did fancy sheet rock work

You have the best and most peculiar friends.

fishlessman

Ozzie_Isaac said:

fishlessman said:

30k to hook up the city sewer line. i would just save it all in 5 gallon buckets in the yard.  before anyone asks, yes i know someone that did just that....to lazy to dig an outhouse but had an unlimited supply of buckets. strange guy, built high end bars in bar harbor maine and did fancy sheet rock work

You have the best and most peculiar friends.

his son worked for me for years, only honest one out of the lot and he is the one with parkinsons....

alaskanassasin

@Ozzie_Isaac I love my basement, if I need to work on the sewer line or any line for that matter all I need is a ladder.

Ozzie_Isaac

fishlessman said:

Ozzie_Isaac said:

fishlessman said:

30k to hook up the city sewer line. i would just save it all in 5 gallon buckets in the yard.  before anyone asks, yes i know someone that did just that....to lazy to dig an outhouse but had an unlimited supply of buckets. strange guy, built high end bars in bar harbor maine and did fancy sheet rock work

You have the best and most peculiar friends.

his son worked for me for years, only honest one out of the lot and he is the one with parkinsons....

That is a rough blow.  Fits in with my world view too.  Bad things happen to good people.

fishlessman

alaskanassasin said:

@Ozzie_Isaac I love my basement, if I need to work on the sewer line or any line for that matter all I need is a ladder.

my camp is the first house ive ever lived in without a basement, but the idiot that built a slab house in maine atleast made the underground pipes accessible from the top. bad side of it though is the bathroom needs carpeting to access it, kitchen and bath drains are all accessible in the bathroom. really odd not having all the cellar space

lkapigian

alaskanassasin said:

@kl8ton what the heck is 30k? $500 in pipe and a mini excavator for the weekend and you are rolling. What and I missing 

I know where I am, the bigger chunk is the fee for the city , they will not let you do the tie in, you can trench and pipe to the street  but they pick it up after that , 30 K is about right 29K of it is BS 

Eoin

SamIAm2 said:

Copper pipe burried in concrete should be protected.

SamIAm2

@eoin - The copper pipe is not embedded in concrete. It is under the slab. Been there since 1968.

Eoin

SamIAm2 said:

@eoin - The copper pipe is not embedded in concrete. It is under the slab. Been there since 1968.

What's under the slab - looks like concrete. Is it built on stone?

Ozzie_Isaac

Eoin said:

SamIAm2 said:

@eoin - The copper pipe is not embedded in concrete. It is under the slab. Been there since 1968.

What's under the slab - looks like concrete. Is it built on stone?

In the US, we don't usually run into stone.  Slabs are usually built on a compacted pad, either built up with dirt and AB and compacted, or on existing, but undisturbed ground.  Lots of clay and sand, but hardly any rock.  We are a continent, not a rocky island in the middle of the Atlantic.

Battleborn

Polishing boots and watching some a TV. Good thing I have a ferocious land shark to guard me. 

lkapigian

Making Bacon and Pancetta ( first step is the same for both )

TideEggHead

saluki2007 said:

Great day in the pit today.  Buddy left early and took 5 with him before the picture. 

Looks like y’all had a fun morning. What’s the plan on cooking them??

SamIAm2

@eoin - I think you missed seeing the information while reading a long post.

"I was wrong about abandoning the CI in place. As they were removing sand under Cast Iron from the original bathroom connection in the old master bathroom, I noticed the sugar sand was wet, then I heard water leaking. It was a pin hole in 3/4" copper cold water line going to the new sink.

Don't know how long it has been leaking but I do know that we pay sewer rate based on the amount of water we use. Plumber said I just saved $800 because that is what he charges to locate and repair a slab water leak."

@Ozzie_Isaac was almost correct in his response, "mostly undisturbed" is more correct here. The original property for the homes in this development was a Southern Yellow Pine forest that was cleared for the timber and then the stumps were removed and the land flattened. The first three homes built had cast iron sewers. All the rest used PVC. Lucky me, mine was the third house built.

Gulfcoastguy

That is something that I will eventually have to deal with myself. The house was built in 1972 with cast iron pipes and a concrete slab. Other people who have dealt with it had water feeds run through the attic. Not exactly sure how the dealt with sewer. I would guess creating a bypass loop around the house and then only having to do short runs to the loop.

saluki2007

TideEggHead said:

saluki2007 said:

Great day in the pit today.  Buddy left early and took 5 with him before the picture. 

Looks like y’all had a fun morning. What’s the plan on cooking them??

Fajitas.