However, I didn't have hot water yet! The water heater tank had been holding stagnant water for who knows how long, and when the "hot" water was turned on (I hadn't lit the pilot light for it yet), foul smelling water came out. So, the first step was to drain the hot water tank. I managed this by hooking up my garden hose to the relief valve at the bottom, and opening it up. I drained it three times, and it still smells a bit, but I figure with regular use, it'll be fine.
Getting the pilot light lit after draining the tank and refilling it, though, was a bit of an ordeal. I'd never done it before, so it was quite interesting trying to figure it out. I had friends giving advice on the phone, and between the two of them, I finally managed to figure it all out without blowing myself up!
So, I was finally able to take a hot shower in my new house! Yay! Only two problems at this point; once was that the tub drain went nowhere but through the floor and wasn't attached to anything; the other was that I hadn't installed the shower doors yet, and had left the shower curtain liner at the apartment, so I had to line the floor with towels to ensure no water damage came to the tiling job yet (since we've yet to grout it). So, for the drain issue, I crawled under the house (my first time doing so, I'd been letting my more knowledgeable friend do all the under-house stuff) and pieced together the pvc pipes for a temporary drain that directed the water out into the yard. That was a good experience for me; I'd been rather afraid to crawl under the house, but once you actually get under there, it's not bad at all. However, getting stuck trying to get back out was something else entirely! It seems that my chest gets stuck between the bottom masonite board and the ground if I go under it any other way but on my belly and head first. No clue why! But no matter the problems associated with doing it, taking a shower in my own bathroom was a joyous experience!
Today, we worked on the plumbing a bit more, and discovered that the toilet tank doesn't leak anymore. Evidently, it just needed to "settle", which is good news, as that means I don't have to buy a new one. However, today was just one headache after another. The first thing we did was to go to Marvin's Building Supply for a connector for the tub drain to the 1 1/2" pvc pipe under the house. The guy we were asking for advice didn't really seem to know a whole lot, but he got us what we thought was the right connector. He however knew nothing about the hot water stem (couldn't recommend anything other than to replace the entire stem, which at the time we didn't think was necessary). In addition, we also needed faucet connectors in a specific size for the vanity, which Marvin's didn't have. So, we headed to Home Depot (where we should have gone in the first place), and got very knowledgeable advice from the plumbing guy there (once we were able to find him - Home Depot seems to have more variety, and more knowledgeable people, than Marvin's, but it's difficult in both places to find anyone to ask in the first place).
The Home Depot guy not only found us what we needed (a compression seat for inside the galvanized pipe that feeds the hot water stem and the plastic flange nipple that the knob screws onto), but also gave us a rubber washer for the stem itself. We also got the two faucet connectors, 1/2" on both ends, although we didn't realize until we tried installing them that one was the proper 1/2" FIP and 1/2" COMP while the other was FIP on both ends. I'll have to go back to Home Depot tomorrow or Tuesday to return the wrong one and get another correct one. So for the vanity, I only have cold running water, but that's better than none at the moment!
Meanwhile, there was still the fact the tub/shower drain was temporary. We'd bought some connections while at Marvin's to make the drain permanent, but it turns out the connection we'd gotten for the drain coming through the floor and the pvc pipe was the wrong size. So I had to head to Marvin's again to get the right size. When I got back, I crawled under and we had to man-handle the pipe sections to move the drain (the former occupants of the house had installed a left-handed tub with a right-handed faucet, so naturally I wanted to correct this issue and got a right-handed tub, which meant the drain line needed to be moved) to it's correct spot. That was another experience! But at least now it's done!
In the meantime, the stem replacements didn't do the trick; my hot water still drips. So it looks like it might require a full stem replacement after all. In addition, it turns out the tub leaks around the drain when it holds water. This turned out to be my fault; I had bought some tub and tile caulk at an estate sale, not realizing that this type of caulk has a very short shelf life. So, I had to run back to Marvin's to get some tub and tile caulk. Now, get this: I couldn't find any there, although I did find the caulk aisle, but there was none specifically for tub and tile there. So I asked the cashier about it; she said it would be on the aisle I had just checked. When I told her I hadn't seen it there, she suggested I ask the guy who was putting boxes away. When I asked him, he scratched his head like he didn't know what I was talking about and said if they had any (!!) it would be on the aisle I had already checked, the same one the girl told me. Well, I went back and looked, and while there were lots of types of caulk, I couldn't find a single one for tub and tile. So, I just walked out of the store, drove the distance to Home Depot, found what I needed immediately, and brought it back. It wasn't until I was halfway back home that I remembered the faucet connector I should have gone ahead and gotten. But oh well.
So, armed with the proper caulk, we recaulked around the shower drain hole, but then discovered that the caulk required 24-48 hours before it should be exposed to water. Realizing I couldn't go that long without water in the house (and keep in mind the hot water in the tub was still dripping), we ended up putting a 5 gallon bucket into the tub to catch the drips.
Now, you would think our adventures in plumbing would be enough of a story for today. But no, there's more. Today is also the day we decided to power the exhaust fan we installed in the bathroom ceiling. So, we turned off the electricity, took the bathroom light switch apart, hooked the electric cable going to the fan to that circuit, installed another switch for the fan on that, turned the power back on - and scratched our heads at what happened. The light wouldn't go off; it worked at lower wattage when the switch was off. If either switch was turned on, the light would power up to full brightness, but it refused to go completely off. So, we decided a single switch to control the fan and light would be fine (after all, the fan is fairly silent, so I don't care if it always comes on with the light). So off went the power again, and rewiring was done to make both controlled by the single switch - and same thing. With the switch set to off, the fan was off but the light was continuously on at low wattage. With the switch turned to on, the light powered up to full and the fan came on. Some investigation showed that when we unplugged the fan (it basically plugs into itself up there in the ceiling), the situation was rectified and the light operated as normal. So that's going to require some research into what's going on there!
At least the bathroom is starting to look like a bathroom now:
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