Recap & Reassessment

If you have been following this Renovation thread you may be laughing at the deviations I’ve been making from the initial goal of getting a new water barrier coating on the basement walls and floor.  Well this has been a crash course in what many have warned me, “it is easy to just do this or that since you already have the wall or floor opened up”.  Case in point, the new half bath we are going to take on.  This phenomenon may not effect everyone but I would argue they would be in the minority.

The issue is that if I’m doing it I want to do it right.  Even the thought of having to open up the floor again to add or fix something makes me cringe.  Also, since this is all DIY, it means that I am investing a ton of time researching in to processes, materials, tools and examples for each project I do.  The last thing I want is to make a “Rookie” error and not realize it until the work has been sealed up.

What happened to the water?

With that being said, I’ll try and do a better job of explaining the details and behind the scene thought process during the project.  This leads me into my next deviation.  Our shower always sucked but now it has been especially bad with the water just spitting out and sometimes a dribble.  Being a guy with short/no hair, I can get buy and make it work.  But as for the other girls in the house this has reached a breaking point.  There is no obvious reason why the pressure is so bad which lead me to believe we had knocked a couple water pipes during basement demo and dislodged sediment to cause a block in the line.

The Floor must wait again, time to take on the water supply lines.  This was on my list but low priority towards next year to be completed so it’s not a complete surprise.  This one was a good progressing after the last job.  It requires quite a bit more research and planning because it is more like electrical in the fact that you need to know all the runs you are doing to every fixture in the house, what order and timing is important.

Problems to plan around

• No Kitchen faucet = no cooking
• No Cold to washer = no laundry
• No upstairs run complete = no going to the bathroom

Research

As you may know by now the house is old and all plumbing was done in 1922.  Even with the best materials most pipings were meant to last 100 years tops.  Most of the house water supply line is 1/2 inch Galvanized Steel branching off to each fixture.  There was little copper in the hose, I would say about 10ft total in the whole house.

I called my city water line to gather what was coming in and how.  All I can see is 1/2 inch copper coming up from my basement floor, going through their meter and then starting the 1/2 inch galvanized steel route.  The city confirmed my assumption that the branch off for my house was in 1/2 inch Lead pipe.  Although this is a scary thought to most that read, you may feel better after the research I found. First of all, way more homes still have that part in lead pipe to the house than you think, especially in the city of Duluth.  The city had started an initiative to replace all of these as they are doing road construction but that will be a slow process.  The good news is that lead pipe erosion works differently than others.

Galvanized steel pipes corrode inward creating very hard calcified layers constricting the inner diameter of the pipe, in some extreme cases down to a pin hole.  Copper created a much thinner layer but can develop pitting from the inside that results eventually into holes or leaks.  Lead actually gets safer the longer it is in use.  When new, the water running through is in more direct contact with the pipe.  However, over time, Lead pipes develop a layer or film on the inside thus eliminating the contact with the actual metal. Throughout this research, I contemplated upgrading that line as it is up to the home owner to update the distance from your house to within 5ft or 6ft of the Road.  I decided against it due to time, money and sheer work.  This would not be like a french drain.  The biggest put off is that up here, that line has to be 6ft under grade and I live on a hill.  Renting a trencher wouldn’t even help me there.The pipe was fine, my only motivation for that was to upgrade the supply to 3/4 inch.  

Next stop in the research process was the physics of flow and how to manage.  In older homes the water comes in cold and does plenty of 90 degree bends or “T”s off to get to each fixture.  Pipe size, distance and rate of flow (gpm or psi) are the main things to look at when assessing your homes current supply and what you are going to change it to.  Mostly changing the pipe material is the main objective but this is also the time to upgrade the supply or routing method to current home standards and fixtures.  Luckily fixture standards haven’t changed much in many years but understanding how each part works can make a big difference in your new piping plan.

Here is an example for copper pipe which is in most homes today as the supply line running throughout.  Hot water should only flow at approx 5 ft/second. Flow of less than one or two ft/sec can be a noticed problem at the fixture in pressure. Based on the diameter of the pipe (1/2 inch is the standard for fixtures), 0.72gpm (Gallons Per Minute) flows at 1.0 ft/second, so this would suggest a maximum of 3.6 gpm for the pipe (assuming 5 ft/second).  Also, you must worry about the pressure drop.  At 5 gpm, the pressure loss is 0.161 psi/ft.  Assuming your supply is 50 psi, and you need 35 psi to be delivered to the shower head, you can have a maximum pipe length of (50–35)/.161=93 ft.  A 90 degree fitting counts as one foot.  Additionally, water pressure will decrease with elevation by approximately 0.433 psi/foot.As long as you meet these two restrictions, you’re fine. Since you need 4.5 gpm, and your pipe is likely less than 93 feet, things should work fine.  Now think through your home.  There are so many 90 degree bends and tees on top of getting water to your master bath on the top floor, all of these reduce your pressure.

My Solution to execute:

First off I decided to go with the latest piping material PEX (or Crossed Linked Polyethylene) and a manifold system.  This is a no brainer when it comes to the older traditional materials.  And takes the cake at being 1/6 the cost of copper tubing.

The other part of my method is to use a Manifold system.  Instead of one line that branches off a bunch of times as described above, there is a way to eliminate most of those issues aside from elevation which can’t be thwarted.  All 90 degree bends and “T”s are eliminated by using a manifold.There are no “T”s because every fixture has its own dedicated line running straight from the manifold.  The best part about dedicated lines is that there would be no need for putting fittings or “T”s in walls or hard to locate places because it is a direct line.There are no sharp 90 bendsfittings because PEX can bend itself with a more gentle sweeping 90 degree.

All of this means far less fittings and much easier running of the pipe throughout the house.  Another topic to mention is efficiency.  Normally I would turn the shower on and then brush my teeth before getting in the shower because that’s how long it took for the water to get warm.  Remember with the old system, you would have to wait for all of that sitting water in the entire line for all other hot fixtures to flush out before the warm water would even get upstairs.  This is a lot of water wasted and same goes for the vanity upstairs.  With a manifold the water would still need to be flushed out but only what is in the direct line.  This means hot water on demand or at least way faster with less wasted water.

I decided on the Viega Manibloc system.  Great reviews, reasonable price and easy installation made it an easy choice. I also loved the fact that I could treat my water system like a fuse box.  There will still be shut–offs at each fixture but now I would have more than the main shut–off as back up.  With the Manibloc I could cut the flow to any fixture I needed from one location. This means I could work on the upstairs toilet or shower if I had to make repairs while others could still cook downstairs or use the other bathroom.

Supplies:

Execution:

1. Mount the Manifold in a strategic place
2. Break the steel from the main city supply line
3. Connect New 3/4 inch PEX from city supply to Manifold Cold input
4. Run 3/4 inch Cold out of Manifold and into Water Heater input
5. Run 3/4 inch Hot Water Heater out to Manifold Input