Master Bathroom Demo

Well, adoring public, the master bathroom demo is done, and BOY was it fun. We've had... an unsurprising number of surprises, a good amount of blood, stitches, and one unintended shower. We are also the proud new owners of not one but three water meter keys. Apparently in this town, water meters covers aren't particularly standard, and your neighbor's meter key might not fit your meter cover - nor will 2 of the three keys available at your local home depot! Thankfully, the most expensive meter key did actually work, but I'm fairly certain that we spent more time getting the cover off the meter than we did in ripping out and capping the plumbing.

What we've done:

1. Used a demolition hammer to rip out floor tile (after attempting the same with just a regular hammer - not the recommended method)
2. Cut the copper pipes leading to the shower, and installed valves (for our convenience as much as any future homeowner's)
3. Used any means necessary to rip out the door assembly, tiled surround and cement board backer, and fiberglass shower base.

And here's the breakdown of that:


Ceramic Tile Removal


I've already covered the basics of this step, but there are a couple of things I didn't mention, because they hadn't been completed at the time of that post. After the initial removal day where we used the demolition hammer to tear out the tiles, we noticed a bunch of spots where the thinset just hadn't come up. At first we thought we could get away with using just a manual scraper to clean those up, but sadly that was not the case. In the end we rented the demolition hammer again, and my brother actually came into town and finished removing all the leftover thinset. If you are removing ceramic tile, here are some things you should do that we learned the hard way:

1. Do not attempt this in a bathroom that still needs to function - the amount of dust you create will make whoever uses the bathroom crazy!
2. Always wear eye and ear protection, and ignore the fact that all the DIY shows never show this: use a respirator. All that dust will certainly go into your lungs, and if you're sensitive at all, it'll cause serious breathing problems.
3. Seal off your demo area from the rest of the house. If you don't, like us, you'll end up with a fine layer of dust on everything, which is really not awesome.

And here are the basic steps to getting this done:

1. Go to HD or your local tool rental place and rent a demolition hammer with tile removal attachment.
2. Put on your gloves, eye protection, ear protection, and respirator.
3. Remove your tile.
4. Clean everything up so you can see if there are spots you've missed.
5. Go back over your concrete floor and make sure you've removed all the thinset.
6. Return the demolition hammer, and call it a day!

 Cutting the Copper Pipes

Boy was this an ordeal that shouldn't have been. Our friendly homebuilder saw no reason to install valves on the pipes leading to the shower that we demo'ed, so we had to follow a little bit longer path to renovation success here.

1. The first thing we did was cut an access panel to the plumbing from the opposite side of the plumbing wall, which in our case was in the 'toilet closet.' We used a jigsaw to cut this access panel, and we didn't make it very clean, because we're going to put a proper access panel in its place later and will clean it up at that point. I can't get the pictures to work right, so just check out the one at the end that's labeled "access panel."
2. As you can see, there are clearly no valves in that panel. To install valves, we obviously need to cut those pipes, and to cut those pipes we need to turn off the main water supply to the house. This simple task took about 4 hours and four people. Unlike other houses I've lived in, the meter and shutoff valve for this house are located in a locked compartment in the front yard. I can only speculate that the city believes people will spend hours of their lives just watching the meter tick away and therefore must lock them away to keep citizens from wasting away their lives (like Harry Potter and the mirror that shows your heart's desire). Anyway - we bought a meter key at HD - it did not fit. We borrowed a meter key from our neighbor - it did not fit out meter, though it fit his. Finally we bought the most expensive meter key that anyone has to offer, and it fit. Now - don't tell anyone this, but we took the lock off of our meter after that. Clearly the thing was defective! We tested the water in the kitchen to make sure the valve was actually off before proceeding to cut pipes.
3. With the water off, we went ahead and cut the pipes using a pipe cutter designed for small spaces. When they use these things on TV - it seems super easy and like it happens super fast. That's just not true. Expect to spend at least 10 minutes cutting each pipe, and don't freak out about that. It's cutting the pipe - it just takes longer than anyone would like!  The picture labeled "pipes and cutter" shows the pipes and the cutter we used.
4. Once we got the pipes cut, we needed to install valves so we could turn on the water. A guy at HD told us about Shark Bite plumbing - it takes all the soldering out of copper plumbing! We bought the valves, marked the depth on the pipes, and then we pushed them on. Voila! Valves installed. We then turned on the water to make sure we weren't leaking - and surprise! No leaks. It was amazing. The pictures at the bottom show the SharkBites as purchased and then as installed.

Access Panel (really rough, I know)

Pipes and Pipe Cutter

SharkBite Valves!!!

SharkBite Valves Installed and Not Leaking!

 Ok - I know I said I was going to break it down in one post, but I feel like this is becoming the Iliad of home reno blog posts, so I'm gonna talk about the rest of the shower demo in another post. Has anyone else ever used the SharkBites and loved them? Or had a meter that couldn't be opened?