It has been so long since I could sit down and post a project update. A lot has happened out at the El Cajon Adobe project. It is the project that just keeps giving!
When the laundry room floor drain backed up, the owner’s son (without my knowledge) called in a plumber who was a friend of the painter’s. $3,800 dollars later they cut the saltillo tile in laundry room floor and only replaced a p trap that was under the floor and then replaced one of the sink drains in the adjoining hall bathroom. To replace the sink drain they hacked open the drywall behind sink and never patched it up. Meanwhile, it appears that all of the clogged gunk from the sink drain just spewed everywhere under that cabinet and they never cleaned it up!!!
This prior plumber warned the owner that the cast iron under laundry room and hall bathroom was clogged, cracked and disintegrating. So, an emergency fix turned into a big issue. For some reason none of this was communicated to me because only the painters were working at the house finishing the painting. Next thing I know she sends me two quotes from plumbing companies to dig up under these bathrooms and replace the cast iron. At this point I had no idea how far the cast iron ran under the house, which rooms were affected and how much had to be dug up. I also warned her that it was going to be a giant domino effect because someone could have to dig up a lot of floors which leads to new flooring, etc.
So, two companies gave her bids for $10,000!!! She sent them to me and just asked what my thoughts were. I told her ‘I cannot in my good conscience let you spend $10,000 for this. I will do everything I can to divert resources over and get this done for you’. But, I warned her that laundry room would have to be completely torn apart, so that morphed into a full laundry room remodel job.
So I had to break away two resources to go over to the house. Here are the steps we took:
Pulled out laundry room cabinets on wall adjoining hall bathroom, including the sink and sink cabinet.
Opened up drywall between rooms
Dug huge trench under adjoining wall - we found the old main cast iron drain running under this wall
Hired a camera scope to come out and scope the line. We got lucky and discovered that kitchen and master bath were draining in new ABS lines separately to main sewer line under driveway. This isolated the mess to just laundry room plumbing and hall bathroom plumbing.
Cut open old cast iron main line and then ran water through kitchen and master bath to double triple check that they were not draining through this old line
Then we discover something strange… turns out the floor drain was really an old shower and bathroom that used to be in the laundry room. For some reason they never capped off the plumbing for the old bathroom when they did the laundry room addition in the 80s. Oddest thing, there are capped shower pipes sticking out of the wall and the drain was just left in the floor. But the worst part is the $3,800 plumber who fixed ONE THING put in a threaded sink Ptrap underground! This brand new Ptrap was completely leaking under the floor. He installed wrong part.
And then we discover that the sink drain line they installed in hall bathroom was never vented!!! They did not connect the sink drain to the existing old copper vent going through roof. At this point I am livid that she got ‘taken’ by some plumber that did a horrible job. She’s really mad and asks me to call the guy. So I get the job of calling some guy and just reaming him out and trying to get some kind of refund. All he was willing to do was come back and ‘repair’ it. It was our decision to cancel the floor drain line so it didn’t do any good to have him come back and fix that and we were already replacing everything under the house so I just did not want the guy near us.
In the end it took us 1 week to tear everything up, install brand new ABS lines for both areas, close it up and level out with concrete. Cost $3,100!!! Owner was really grateful. But, unfortunately one of the hall bathroom mexican sinks (clay, not porcelain) cracked when he was trying to disconnect pipe under sink. For some stupid reason this really upset the Son who lives there because the sinks are ‘special’. I explained that these sinks are sold by the hundreds along the roadside to Ensenada and they are thin clay. So, I get to spend weeks trying to find a sink that matches the existing one. No luck (without crossing border and driving up and down the roads in Baja). So, we ordered two new sinks (I had to pay for one of them) and two new faucets and get them installed into hall bathroom. Still trying to clean up the mess prior plumber left under the sink and get the drywall patched in the back of the sink cabinet.
So, now we are back to laundry room remodel. This laundry room is going to be so beautiful. It is actually as large as most kitchens. I loaded some photos, but it is covered up with a lot of paper and hard to see just yet. The hideous red formica countertops are going to be painted with some special countertop paint.
Funny story… I cannot be out at El Cajon very often. My tile guy finished up the shower tile and sink backsplash area and wanted to send photos. He made a cute Tik Tok video of finished tile work. I cannot load it but it was set to music and everything
