Posts tagged “structure”

Addendum: Plumbers and carpenters find a third way

Posted on 13 July 2013

Before:

Cast iron waste line in bath floor with cut floor joists

After:

Complicated bathroom floor framing to accommodate plumbing

Closer view of complicated bathroom floor framing to accommodate plumbing

Leo Tuccinardi, our plumber, is technically proficient, but we really love him because he talks to us. I think we spent an hour or more staring at this small bathroom and making sketches on scraps of 2×4, but we figured out how to accommodate both the pipes and the floor structure. The final framing layout bears almost no resemblance to anything you’d find in a carpentry textbook, but I’m pretty confident that the 12×24 tile in the finished bathroom won’t crack.

Categories: Structural work, trade secrets

Tagged: bathroom, floor framing, Plumbing, structure

On the source of the historical enmity between plumbers and carpenters

Posted on 21 June 2013

We are accustomed to seeing framing notched, drilled, and otherwise modified by plumbers trying to fit their pipes into houses built before indoor plumbing was de rigueur. This bathroom floor is a bit extreme, though, as the floor joists are almost entirely cut away, and the cast iron waste pipes seem to be providing the only remaining structure. And the cast iron wasn’t in great shape either:

By some miracle of gravity and hydrodynamics, the space below the hole was not filled with sewage.

I should add that our plumber, Leo Tuccinardi, of Pipe Connections in Watertown, MA, has the utmost respect for wood framing and its role in keeping buildings upright.

Categories: Seen

Tagged: cast iron, cut framing, joists, Plumbing, structure

Unintended consequences

Posted on 24 December 2010

The chimney wasn’t so good. It was failing structurally, and someone had made a half-hearted attempt to splint it back into soundness with a couple blocks of wood, screw hooks, and a turnbuckle. It was also on the small side — only 16 inches square, but was supporting large hearths above — and the house was sagging around it. There was also a question of respect. I make no claims at knowing the electrical code, but I’m pretty sure it’s not recommended to run wires down the center of a chimney. Given all thie, the clients asked us to remove it, shore up the house around it, and replace the non-functional fireplaces with something more user-friendly. While the weather was still reasonably…

Categories: Structural work, Uncategorized

Tagged: bricks, chimney, Santa, structure