Bathroom Plumbing

For days I've been poring over installation instructions for my bathtub faucet rough in kit, pictured right on my beautiful refinished-though-rustic loft floor. It's laid out there roughly how it looks inside the wall with the hot water supply valve on the left, then the spout/diverter, then the cold water valve, and then the handshower thingy on the far right. Connections from the valves to the spout/diverter are copper, and from the spout/diverter to the handshower are threaded connections and a braided hose. I kept trying to decide if I could do it myself, the drawings and instructions were just specific/detailed/straightforward enough that I had a pretty good understanding of what needed to go in and how (order/position-wise that is).

Ultimately, however, I decided, no, I can't. As I type the plumber is soldering joints under the tub, in among the plastic pipe and electrical wiring, in/under the backside of the fiberglass tub and metal struts or whatever you call the bars that help the fiberglass hold it's shape around the loose-ish edges. Yuck.

Still, I'm glad I read it all, I was able to review the instructions with the plumber before he started and I think I even helped a little in that bit. There was one step he did that I wouldn't have done, he drilled smaller holes than the instructions dictated and then chisled out the rough deck so that the plate that mount thereupon would then be flush and snug whereas if they were drilled per instructions they would have had considerable play in them to the point that the handles would have wiggled. "Movement is not good in my business. I don't like movement." So I held my tongue--after questioning him once of course, I mean just because he has 20 years experience doesn't mean I'm not going to question him. Seems to me like anytime something's done differently than what the instructions direct, it's worth questioning... except where the valves are less than 3 inches from the wall behind them, I asked him to do that.

So there's this kind of weirdness where the plastic (CPVC) pipe that was already in there leads to a panel at the side of the tub instead of to the ledge by the tub where the faucet is actually installed. I guess it makes sense if you're expecting to install a faucet including the rough-in kit after tile, but it seems like it would be a lot easier to do it before. So there are these juts of pipes heading to the side of the tub that the plumber had to meet up with. This plumber did all his work in copper even though all the existing stuff is in plastic. He just whipped that stuff out. And while it seems kind of goofy and indirect, there is a certain elegance to it too where maybe there's a little more play in the system that will somehow give it flexibility and longevity where at first it seemed like more pipe lengthe would mean more vulnerability to mistakes.

It turns out when my tiler said "starting Monday?" he meant "starting next Monday?" That's okay, or at least it all works out okay since I did a lot of prep stuff this week on what I thought was borrowed time. The only real, or biggest, cost was the added stress of that.

I've got someone coming tomorrow morning EARLY to talk about design. I'd better make it an early night tonight.