Plumbing (and a little history, too)

Today a plumber's van was parked in front of our house. After they left, the plumbing materials were no longer in the middle of the living room floor. We now have all sorts of pipes running everywhere. One even goes over the ceiling. I have no idea why. Maybe that gives it enough water pressure to flow downhill and flush the toilet? Actually, I don't think that's how water pressure works. I really hope this pipe never bursts, because it runs right over the closet to the master bedroom. Can you imagine coming home and finding every single thing in your closet WET? The pipe is white so you can see it going up through the roof.


And we have these neat little drains for our future toilets. Don't they look like you just set the toilet down and turn it to lock in place? I wonder if it is that easy. At least with a concrete slab house we don't have to worry about a leaking toilet damaging the wooden floor and then falling through into the basement. (No, this didn't actually happen to my parents, but the floor repairman said it could have! Scary. And I thought the way Elvis died would have been the most embarrassing possible way to go!) If you look closely, you can see that there is a little trap door closing off the toilet drain. This is part of a trap that keeps sewer gas from seeping back into your house. It uses a little dip in the pipe that stays full of water to keep the gas from rising into your house. Not something you want to happen. This innovation was very important to making it possible to have toilets INSIDE houses without dangerous gases or germs. I learned that from a cool book called Inside the Victorian Home, by Judith Flanders. It had lots and lots of details about things like toilets, underwear, and cooking. Just the sorts of things you might wonder about that are never talked about in history books. It was very informative. Perfect for a Charles Dickens fan. It made me really, really appreciate modern living, with things like microwaves, vacuums, and toilet paper!


The bathtub is still sitting in the garage. I am not exactly sure it will fit through a door, so I hope they have some way to get it into the bathroom. I refrained from climbing in to test the size of the tub, but only because it was a little dirty. I do hope it is cleaner when the house is finished!


I think it is funny that all the pipes in modern houses are plastic. The word plumbing comes from the Latin word for lead, plumbum. (Classicists: plumbum or plumbium? My dictionary has both.) This is for one of two reasons: the ancient Romans used lead to make the pipes for their running water. Maybe the effects of excess lead explain some of the behavior of the Roman emperors? OR the lead refers to a chunk of lead used to weight down a plumb line, a string that would hang straight down because of gravity. You could then use the plumb line to make sure your pipes and walls were perfectly straight. Having seen how far from plumb most houses are, I favor the first explanation. Maybe we should call it plasticking instead of plumbing, today. Or PVCing? Should that be spelled peeveeceeing?

Sitting around in the dirt by our house, I found these neat little things:


One is a strip of nails for a nail gun. I sooo want my own nail gun, after watching the guys work on our house. It makes this cool noise. And you can actually shoot nails several feet. I wonder if you need a license to buy one? The nails come in strips, just like they would for a machine gun. Maybe you could wear them on a bandolier? (You can see what a bandolier is at this link. In fact, they will even sell you one of your very own. So you can look just like Chewbacca!)

The other object I am holding is a nail with a little orange plastic collar around it. These are used to hold the plastic sheets in place. I don't know if the sheets are moisture barriers or insulation, or both. They do tear pretty easily, and I think the collars keep the nails from tearing right through. So, the end result looks a little like the tufted back of a chair with buttons on it.

As you can see from the footprints, Spider Man is helping to build our house. I guess there aren't any criminal masterminds to fight.


This Typar company not only makes the sheets of stuff, they also make special tape for mending it when it tears. That is a good thing, since ours got a couple of holes. But it's all good. (Takes deep yoga breath!) I just keep reminding myself that all the tears and rough edges will be hidden when the house is all done. And so will the cool bi-lingual graffiti. Any Spanish speakers want to weigh in on my translation?

Any new guesses on our total number of boxes? We are currently at 68 boxes. And that is after three car loads of stuff went to Goodwill. Not to mention the old papers that were recycled. At least old, shredded papers make excellent packing material. If I'm not so good at reducing, at least I will reuse and recycle. Donations of boxes will be gratefully accepted!