once again into the breach....

[Ireland House]

After family dramas and tragedies, we are finally able to return to working on my kitchen. We knew we wanted to re-plumb the bath above it before we did anything about the ceiling, but it quickly became a "have to do this now" situation when the bathtub stopped draining at all. The PO who had turned it into apartments (Grrrr) had put the drain line it going up. There were two additional traps between the visible drum trap and the tub.

Now we have bright shiny new supplies and drains. The supplies all come from manifolds (one hot, one cold) so no more stealing the water when someone is in the shower! Pex is a beautiful thing. We are upgrading the main water supply to 1 1/2 inches from under 3/4".
We have run new supply lines almost everywhere now and both upstairs bathrooms have new drain lines. The other bathroom drain was also a "have to fix it now" situation. It developed a leak where it was buried in the concrete floor. I lost part of my original tile floor and and now looking for replacement tiles.

Pics are in my gallery under kitchen and bath.

[Lily left the valley]

We are trying to set aside some funds for when we have to handle the next chunk of plumbing repairs. We're not even at the replacement stage yet.

Looking at your photos reminded me that I should probably document all of our various plumbing bits. You can see the changes done over the years with various traps and pipe types.

Glad that you're getting past that difficult time, and are able to focus on things that will bring you happiness down the road, even if you consciously forget about them once the ceiling goes back up.

[Gothichome]

Irerland house, good to see your post,been a while. You have been busy, now that you have new plumbing you can rest assured of no major problems for years to come and you can now feel comfortable about making the repairs.
Look forward to more updates.

[Ireland House]

We are trying to set aside some funds for when we have to handle the next chunk of plumbing repairs. We're not even at the replacement stage yet.

The funniest thing we found was a drain line sealed with electrical tape. The weirdest was a lead toilet flange that had been cast in place and was of a configuration no one around here had ever seen before.

When it comes to replacement of supply lines, I cannot tell you how much we love pex. Blue for cold and red for hot, the pipes are the same, just color coded so you know later what you are looking at. Imagine garden hose on steroids. We have been able to run lines from the manifold in the boiler room clear up to the upstairs baths with no joints. We can usually pull it through the wall like wiring, so no holes in the plaster. It can stand being frozen with no leaks. You make connections with Shark Bites, just be sure to buy the real deal and not knock offs. We did learn that the hard way.

Sorry I disappeared for a while. Like I said, major family drama. If it is not one thing it is another.

We are trying desperately to get my kitchen up before the holidays. I would love to have a big family dinner and actually use the dining room and not the living room. After we get my tile floor down, the next step will be the ceiling. We are thinking along the lines or a suspended ceiling instead of having to put a big access panel in for the plumbing. I like the look of the tin look tiles, but don't know how that would be in a 50's kitchen. I figure maybe if they had remodeled in the 50's, they may have just painted the existing tin ceiling. anybody want to weigh in with any ideas?

[Manalto]

While the evolution of a room retaining earlier features is a legitimate choice, you do have other options for a suspended ceiling that won't look cheesy:

How about corrugated metal, which would be compatible with a 1950s kitchen:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Fasade-Rib- ... DAod5sEOAw

[mjt]

When it comes to replacement of supply lines, I cannot tell you how much we love pex. Blue for cold and red for hot, the pipes are the same, just color coded so you know later what you are looking at. Imagine garden hose on steroids. We have been able to run lines from the manifold in the boiler room clear up to the upstairs baths with no joints. We can usually pull it through the wall like wiring, so no holes in the plaster. It can stand being frozen with no leaks. You make connections with Shark Bites, just be sure to buy the real deal and not knock offs. We did learn that the hard way.

Agreed - I love pex. I've not used sharkbite fittings. I've been using the copper crimp rings over the past 10 years with good success.

[phil]

Now we have bright shiny new supplies and drains. The supplies all come from manifolds (one hot, one cold) so no more stealing the water when someone is in the shower! Pex is a beautiful thing. We are upgrading the main water supply to 1 1/2 inches from under 3/4".
We have run new supply lines almost everywhere now and both upstairs bathrooms have new drain lines.

Most pex systems seem to run to a manifold then they all feed from that From a larger diameter supply. I once saw a guy that ran pex in a loop. It’s fed from two directions. His theory was that if it's run in a loop and then if anyone takes water from anywhere in the loop it’s being fed in two directions. No manifold needed. I found it interesting to think about

[1918ColonialRevival]

... I like the look of the tin look tiles, but don't know how that would be in a 50's kitchen. I figure maybe if they had remodeled in the 50's, they may have just painted the existing tin ceiling. anybody want to weigh in with any ideas?

Nothing at all wrong with a decorative tin ceiling in a Mid Century kitchen. If I remember correctly, your house is from just before the turn of the 20th Century, which corresponds with when the tin ceilings were first becoming popular. It was all too common for people to "upgrade" a kitchen with new cabinets and appliances, but leave the ceiling and/or floor how they were. I can't tell you how many kitchens I've seen with enameled metal cabinets from the '40s and '50s, but still with earlier 1" hex tile on the floor and tin, tongue and groove boards, or plaster on the ceiling.

If you are considering tin, I highly recommend W.F. Norman. Much better quality and a more authentic product than any of the other current vendors.

[Mick_VT]

His theory was that if it's run in a loop and then if anyone takes water from anywhere in the loop it’s being fed in two directions. No manifold needed. I found it interesting to think about

that is how electrical outlets are wired in the UK

[phil]

they seem to like 220 as well. I guess it saves on copper.
I suppose we could run higher pressure and that would deliver more water in the same way but it probably wouldn't really save anything. smaller pex lol..

I found it interesting the way we can run two circuits with a three wire.( plus ground) since we are running two circuits out of phase from each other we can share the neutral and that saves copper in a different way. both circuits share the neutral as part of their own circuit. because the neutral is conducting power from both circuits and they out of phase from each other they don't overload the neutral. In fact both circuits use the same diameter wire for the "hot" the word hot being a bit confusing as it is in fact an AC circuit so the power is going both directions and reversing direction 60 times a second. I guess the neutral is carrying twice the load that the "hot" wire is but because the two circuits are out of phase from each other it doesn't overload the neutral wire. I'm not an electrician and it took me a bit to wrap my head around. Thats sort of how my brother explained it and he's an electrician.. maybe electricians dont; use the word "hot" to describe the black or red wire..

The electrician I often work with keeps explain about star and delta and commercial power and It seems to take a while to sink in to an understandable level for me. good thing he's patient. I think for myself and a lot of others we learned about circutry fixing cars, but that was DC so it was ok to think of the red as hot and the ground as neutral. The Brits liked to reverse that up too, just like driving on the wrong side of the road lol..
when I started working on old radios I found myself even more confused as now we are dealing with balanced circuits and frequency.. I've fixed a few radios up and found my way through some pretty complex issues by getting stuck and doing a lot of head scratching. If someone asks me how a radio works I still have a difficult time to give any sort of logical explanation. I learned some of it but I think I have some big gaps in my scattered training. Ive got a lot of old tube radio era books and I start reading that and it amazes me how much they knew even way back. Some who got military training are good at it. digital electronics and IC's totally confuse me. books like popular science used to have all these interesting circuits you could build yourself but the technology advanced to the point where it got uncommon to build these little circuit boards and stuff at home. I thought I'd get into radio and be the only kid on the block that could understand them. most who do are older than me but I don't think I've picked up enough to be very proficient.