House for my Parents

[Dr Dave]

Nice job on the cabinets, the sink base is very neat, so many times the installer will butcher the openings for the plumbing.

Dave

 

[MacLawn]

I like that wall for island, Eddie! Is that blue pipe that new fangled PEX?

 

[clemsonfor]

Being from an area and growig up in an older home and all homes of friends were on a crawl, i just cant get use to houses on a slab.

You have to destroy your home to fix a plumbing issue with a drain or supply if you put them in the floor for a reason like to get to the island, unless you laid a chase pipe in the context of your water line and you can pull pex through if needed in future.

I know a new home should not need work for 20-30 years but things happen. And most of us dont worry about such as that but i guess i do worry about this stuff. Also its not as easy to pull electrical or phone or plumbing as you just cant crawl under it.

What would be the cost difference in your case to put a home on a crawl?

 

[Bird]

Almost all homes in this area are built on concrete slab and it's actually pretty seldom that there's a problem, but it does happen. An aunt and uncle of mine had a water leak under their house in Dallas quite a few years ago and the plumber just cut the incoming line just outside the house, ran the water line up into the attic and then down where needed. I don't know what that cost, but I'm sure it wasn't cheap. And I once looked at a house that had a big jack hammered hole in the slab in the living room to fix such a problem. The other, more frequent problem, is settling and requiring re-leveling by digging under, using hydraulic jacks to raise part of the foundation, then pumping in concrete, leaving the jacks in place. That's not cheap either.

When my brothers and I were building a house for one brother, they had built homes in Alaska, so we dug out for a 4' crawl space under the house and when the concrete truck showed up to pour the footers, the driver looked at the forms and asked, "Where ya'll from?":laughing: He said, "I knew you weren't from around here to build something like that."

 

[EddieWalker]

I like that wall for island, Eddie! Is that blue pipe that new fangled PEX?

Yes, I ran PEX for all of the runs, and then went to copper for all of the connections. The advantage to PEX is that you don't have any joints, or connections on your runs. Leaks almost always happen where you connect the pipes. The part I don't like about PEX are the plastic fittings. They might be fine, but for peace of mind over time, I wanted something with a proven history.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Being from an area and growig up in an older home and all homes of friends were on a crawl, i just cant get use to houses on a slab.

You have to destroy your home to fix a plumbing issue with a drain or supply if you put them in the floor for a reason like to get to the island, unless you laid a chase pipe in the context of your water line and you can pull pex through if needed in future.

I know a new home should not need work for 20-30 years but things happen. And most of us dont worry about such as that but i guess i do worry about this stuff. Also its not as easy to pull electrical or phone or plumbing as you just cant crawl under it.

What would be the cost difference in your case to put a home on a crawl?

I grew up with pier and beam foundation homes and used to enjoy playing under them as a kid back in CA, but here in TX, they are very rare and from what I've seen, only in the oldest of homes. Each has it's advantages, but overall, I prefer a slab over pier and beam. With all our humidity, bugs and critters, it's nice not to have anything under there. The pier and beam homes are the ones with the most foundation issues. While I'm sure most of that is because of age, materials used and a lack of knowledge about soils back then, it's just a lot easier to build a slab then to design and build a pier and beam foundation that wont move with clay soils.

You are right about the pipes breaking. I just finished a job where all the copper water lines where run under the house with flexible copper. The break is under their master bathroom vanity on a water line going to their tub and shower. I could have either tore out the vanity and gone through the concrete to find it and fix it, or I could cap that line and run a new PEX line up the wall, through the attic and down another wall. I ran the new line, which just took a day.

I have another client who had a water leak under their slab and they hired a local plumber to find and fix it. They went through the slab in four places. I'm not clear why because I'm getting the story from the home owners, but now that the plumbing part is fixed, I'm going to repair the slab and redo their floors.

If either of those homes had been on Pier and Beam, this would have been a lot easier and cheaper for them to fix. Of the tens of thousands of houses in Tyler built like this, it's still pretty rare to happen. Going with PEX under the slab on my parents house for the water lines to the kitchen island could lead to something like that happening. I'm hoping the PEX is the right product to use.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

We've been doing a lot of things on the house, but mostly it's slow going. We went shopping for granite Saturday, which was fun. They also bought all their appliances, which should be delivered in a week or so. We want the appliances in place before the granite, so they can get a perfect fit.

Floor tile is all in. My mom is doing all the grout work. She has a talent for it and is very proud of how nice it's looking. I'm done with the master bath shower walls, but still need to do the floor. I also have to do the common bathroom tub/shower tile work. We should be on interior trim pretty soon.



Eddie

 

[brin]

You can do it all Eddie....your mom & dad are lovely folks and obviously put in a full days work....The home is looking great....thanks for sharing...:thumbsup:

 

[Gator6x4]

Very nice Eddie. I am sure your parents will appreciate. As an aside I hope you are providing your mother with knee pads and a glove. That is a lot of grouting.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Yes, I ran PEX for all of the runs, and then went to copper for all of the connections. The advantage to PEX is that you don't have any joints, or connections on your runs. Leaks almost always happen where you connect the pipes. The part I don't like about PEX are the plastic fittings. They might be fine, but for peace of mind over time, I wanted something with a proven history.

Eddie

I've always used brass fittings for pex. I mainly use Watts brand pex.