Copperific

So now we're pretty much all replumbed in copper. The water tastes funny: metallic and fluxy, and it will for a while, until the pipes develop a patina on the inside. But the water pressure! Amazing what a small change like widening the water main makes.

Yesterday we suffered through a day without water, and at the end of the day they had connected the new plumbing (but not the new water main) to the supply. Here's a pile of all the old galvanized steel pipe they ripped out under the house, a tangled mess of pipes that were badly installed and flaked rust into the lines all the time. So glad to see that leave.

Discarded pipe

The new plumbing looks very clean: the simple things like having the pipe sizes step down the right way to serve all the fixtures really do make a difference in a plumbing system. We were lucky that all our plumbing at the moment is on the first floor, and easily accessible from the basement and our tall crawlspace. I'm guessing that saved us some money on the job.

New plumbing

This morning the guys connected the new main to the meter.

Connection to the water meter

This is what the old connecting pipe looked like. Maybe we should save it for our house museum. NOT.

Old connection to main

They pulled out and cut up the old water main, which was basically trash anyway.

Cutting up the old water main

Our shiny (literally!) new water main. Soon to be buried.

New water main

The other thing the guys did today was move the water heater to its new location, more central to where all the plumbing is going to end up. Here are the pipes going down to where it was installed; we didn't take a picture after it was put in.

Water heater lines

In other news, yesterday I went and ordered our traditional Christmas dumpster from the trash company. Some people are coming and looting through the wood pile, but when they're done with it, anything left on New Year's Day is going in the trash. Plus a bunch of other junk from the yard. Some families have a tradition of building snowmen, some roast chestnuts on a fire, some just gather and sing Christmas carols. For us, on the other hand, it doesn't feel like Christmas without a full dumpster, a bottle of wine, and a thrown back.

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posted by ayse on 12/21/05