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Extreme Plumbing
Holy, sweet mother of Jesus! Eleven-hundreed+ linear feet of copper pipe (which will always contain 21.6+ gallons of water!), over 250 fittings, 1 1/2 MC* tanks of oxygen, 6 MC tanks of acetylene, and 80+ hours of labor are reasons why you should not attempt this at home.
(* At the tank refill store, I learned MC stands for motorcycle. It is this smallish tank size that became standardized for use on early motorcycle lamps.)
Here's the skinny on "the wall" in the utitility room:
1. municipal water supply delivered to "the wall"
2. municipal water then sent to: the shop, a landscaping water supply, the water softener, and the hose spigots -- each line controlled by a ball valves in basement.
3. softened water then sent to: reverse osmosis filter (which goes to every sink in the house), old house cold, upstairs (master bath) cold, basement cold, and water heater -- each line controlled by ball valves in basement
4. hot water then sent to: old house hot, upstairs hot, and basement hot -- each line controlled by ball valves in basement; old house & upstairs hot lines also have a convection-loop, where the hot supplies go to the farthest point on their runs, then travel back to drain valve on water heater (theory: allowing for a dynamic, convection current of hot water, even the farthest sink should have near instantaneous availibility of hot water)
5. each supply line may be drained independently of the other supplie lines
6. all supply lines are 3/4" copper, and subfeeds are 1/2" copper
7. One pipe even has your address on it.
HVAC
July 2002 -- The addition's AC compressor goes online! The old house AC is still waiting on.... oh, wow, who know's what all.... But, for the rest of the summer, my addition work will be in AC! Dan Garner, the HVAC guy, called the compressor layout I built an "airconditioning mecca." Damn, straight.
This is the semi-demolished, former utility area of our existing house. The water heater will take its place of honor on "the wall" downstairs, the new furnace for the existing house will go in its place, then a small pantry niext in line (after all, this is our existing kitchen), and lastly, our refrigerator (not picuterd). Once this furnace is in place and the old breaker box is moved (picture below), demolition will continue to open the old house to the addition. Missy has zero idea of how much inside dust that is; don't you tell her.
Sept 2002 -- This bulkhead forms the 'hallway' ceiling between the old house and the addition. It also acts as a major utility umbilical between old and new. And it's just one more umbilical that I will not cut.
Sept 2002 -- Merv Franklin, of the Owen County Health & Building Department, finishes our rough-in inspection by wagering me where the electrical fire will start.
This wall is in the TV room and shows the old house circuits that had to be rerouted into the basement to the new service panel.
On the left, you can see 3/4" blue flexible conduit running from top to bottom. It's commonly called Smurf Tube, and I've run one to every phone/cable outlet in the house for future wiring standards. And, in each phone/cable box there are 2 Cat-5 networking runs (that's 10 copper pairs for all kinds of phone lines and computer networking) and 2 coaxial cables (for satellite and antenae). The righthand picture is in the utility room showing where all these cables and smurf tubes terminate.
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