Scorch marks

My water heater was threatening to burn down the house. Here's what the inside walls of the shed looked like when I disassembled it to hook up the new plumbing:

So out with the 20-year-old torcher:

I stripped the copper out of it, then set it out on the curb for free pickings. 5 minutes later it was gone.

Installed a brand new, larger water heater that works like a champ. No more bubbles and squeaks, no more fire threat, hot water instantaneously...lovin' it!

Living room comfort

Termites are bad

Blocked and rotted sewer vent

Well this explains why the sewer drain cleanout was left open. The old cast iron sewer vent that runs up the wall and through the roof has a 2' section that is completely rotted out. The previous owner had left the cleanout open to allow venting for the plumbing, since this pipe was blocked with debris, Not to mention it has a large gaping hole down the side of it. This will need to be repaired since the cleanout not only leeches nasty, smelly sewer gases, but also could cause a sewage backup under the house.

Houston...

...the toilet flange is flush with the floor.
We are ready for lift-off.

Not sure if snake or lizard???

Ninjas

They dance on trees.

How to join PVC to galvanized pipe

Ok, somewhat of a hack, but it worked alright in most places. Some of the connections leaked a drop occassionally. At some point I became fed up with the old galvanized pipe and just ripped it all out and started fresh with PEX, which I ended up being much happier with.

How to connect 2 pieces of galvanized pipe when the threads are stripped

Here we had a dilemma. The new bathroom plumbing was all ready to go but the galvanized hot water supply line was in bad shape. The threads at the connection end were badly corroded and stripped, and the pipe would not budge when we tried to remove it. I set off to Home Depot and asked the plumber lady what we could do to hack this into working. She suggested using 2 galvanized compression couplings. Unfortunately, the only couplings in stock at Home Depot were too large (pictured) but I was able to find ½" compression couplings at my local plumbing supply store. They worked great. In the end though, I ripped out all the galvanized pipes, returned all the parts, and started fresh with PEX, which I ought to have just done in the first place.

Assessing the bathroom plumbing

My friend Tommy was probably thinking 'what the hell am I going to do about this mess?'