So, before that 1/3 year hiatus from updating on the build, where were we in my reports???
Ah, the utilities! The elements that turn what we’re building from a rudimentary shelter into a real livable modern house. We began with laying the plumbing lines in the wall.
We’d heard a lot of good things about PEX plumbing, which are plastic tubing with specialized connectors instead of the old standard copper pipes. With PEX, you don’t need to solder. There are even now connectors for PEX that don’t require crimping the attachments of connectors to the tubing, you just push them on and they’re on there solidly creating a water tight seal – which just seems unreal, but seems to work like a dream.
We did use a bit of copper pipe, to bring the plumbing into the house through the floor from where we’ll connect to a hose outside. Eli built a little stabilizing system with wood blocks to go around the copper pipe so it won’t move about in the floor when the tiny house is traveling.
Careful of the torture wall when we pulled the insulation out to drill the holes for the tubing to run through the top plate – all the nails from the shingle installation!
As our kitchen sink is on one side of the house and our shower on the other, we ran the plumbing up and through the roof. Just to be extra thorough with insulating the tubing, since we had the space to do so in the ceiling cavity (our rafters are 2x6s, while our wall studs are 2x4s), we also covered the tubes in their own layer of insulation.
One of the more difficult parts was figuring out the plumbing for the shower fixture. We’re also planning to put a tiny sink in the shower (double use of space!), so had to plumb for that. We had to install a backing board where the shower handle would be installed – we needed something to screw it to and to keep it rigidly in place. And, just in case we decide to forego our composting tiolet and opt for a flushing tiolet, we ran the plumbing to where the tiolet will be.
Very technical work. Love the practicality of red for hot (left) and blue for cold (right). Very nice work and on the insulation of tubing.
Thanks!