Chicago Duplex Down Rehab

Stefan's crew has been working all week on putting the master bathroom drain plumbing in. City code says you have to use cast iron below grade. Luckily the main drain pipe to the street is about 3 feet down below the gravel, so it was not difficult to create a system that flows down using good 'ol gravity. There are a couple tricks to putting in the custom shower drain (without curb) and the tub drain/p-trap learned from Stefan on Saturday morning. Those will be covered in detail after I get a photo. I must impart this infomation on others before they try to put drain plumbing under concrete!

All 10 Marvin windows for the house west openings have arrived, and they are beautiful! Rick and Eric will be putting in the new window framing after the basement concrete pour is finished. You can see the factory installed brick moulding around the edges clearly in this photo. Once the windows have been installed, all we have to do is caulk around the edges between the face brick and window. Note.. 10 Marvin windows are just below the price of a cheap economy car. Email me if you're really curious how much they cost.

We pulled out the apartment entrance door jambs, including the transom windows. It's much easier to complete the framing without the existing finish carpentry in the way, and it gives us a chance to strip the old varnish off. We're using the 2nd floor as a workshop. Thats a citrus based paint stripper gel there, not the nasty chemical stuff. I haven't used it before, we'll see how it works. We're definitely saving all three entrance doors.

The plumber has started the drain work in the basement. Not too many surprises, thankfully. There's only 1 water main coming into the building, and the main drain out to the street are both in good shape. Although, this kludged together drain stack (see photo) was not done properly, maybe the reason for the rust out. All the new drainage pipe is cast iron, not PVC. You can only use PVC for drain pipes above ground. I have to contact the water department again about installing a water meter. My flat rate water bill for 6 months was around $450. They said they would come on Feb. 1st, but I'm going to call them again tomorrow. I might want them to come earlier if they need to install on the interior of the building. The plumber said they usually put it on the interior, but I could have sworn the Water Dept. guy said they would dig up the parkway and place it there. hmm..

It's been a few weeks since my last post. Eric has been leading up the project while I was out of town. The goal has been to get the plumber in here to start the drain work, but we had lots of basement jobs to do first: - more excavating of dirt to make room for new floor (2" gravel, insulation, 4" concrete) without raising the finished floor height - filling in cracks limestone foundation with mortar - painting below grade foundation with DRY LOK (we'll also cover with 6 mil plastic later) Hopefully we'll be ready for the gravel delivery soon. I'm not sure why, but the plumber wants the gravel in before he puts in the drains. Maybe he doesn't like working in the mud? The photo is of my friend Chris sloppin' on the waterproofing. He gave me a day's labor in exchange for a couch we were no longer using.