With an Older Home, There is Always Something!

Older is relative; our house in San Clemente was built in 1988, young by New England and European standards, where homes were and are built to last centuries.  Not so much in the Wild West; a 50-year-old house in Orange County is OOOOOLD!  Our homes in California were and are built fast (translation; cheap); most of them are resting on a flat concrete slab that can float, and built with a wooden frame, that can bend and buckle in an earthquake, hopefully with minimal damage.  So, if you move into a house in SoCal, don’t be surprised if you need to do a bunch of repairs, just to make it livable!        

So, a few months ago, we had a leak in the garage, which turned out to be an old and cracked gasket between the bathtub overflow and the overflow pipe.  That time, it was pretty obvious that it was coming from our front bathroom, which we also call “Matt’s bathroom”, since it is attached to his room.  That time, we had drops of water coming from the garage ceiling, kinda like a little garage rain shower!  Not fun, but our plumber Brent came out and fixed the gasket, and everything was fine, no more leaks! 

Now, a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that we had a bunch of water on the garage floor, which is never a good sign; I’m thinking “not again!”.  I asked Kathy if she had washed off the driveway, and when she said “yes I did, and I also washed off the garage door”, I was temporarily happy, thinking the water was coming from washing episode.  I wiped up the water, hoping that this was the end of it, but a day later there was an even bigger puddle, and I realized that it was time to call Brent the Plumber again.         

Water in the garage…

Brent came out on Monday the first of December, and we moved the big workbench out of the way, to expose the wall where it was most likely that the water was coming from.  I ran the shower and flushed the toilet in the front bathroom, and sure enough, water was coming out from behind the drywall.  Once the wall was accessible and we had determined where it was leaking from, Brent started to cut a hole in the drywall, to see what was going on in the wall:

Drywall is removed, and the cast iron drainpipe is exposed.

In the picture above, right above the coupling, you can see a black cast iron drainpipe, which was put in for soundproofing.  Soundproofing for what you might ask?  Well, the thought was that you don’t wanna hear when somebody flushes the toilet, but why in the garage?  Beats me, but we had already replaced two cast iron drainpipes before in the house, one right when we moved in (we had a leak over by the kitchen, which leaked out onto our back patio), and then we replaced another one preemptively, when we remodeled our kitchen.

More and more drywall is cut and removed.

As Brent removed more drywall and exposed more of the cast iron drainpipe, it became evident that there was a 12-inch longitudinal crack in the pipe.  How is that even possible you might ask?  Well, supposedly when the iron pipe gets cold (like at night), and then the pipe is hit with hot water (like that morning shower), over time the darn pipe just cracks (the same thing had happened to the first cast iron drainpipe that we replaced back in 2021). 

As more drywall was removed, the leak in the cast iron pipe became evident…

 

Here is a close-up of the cracked pipe…

 Well, Brent and his guys replaced the old, cracked cast iron drainpipe with a new ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) drainpipe, which was glued in place on the bottom, and got a coupling on the top: 

New ABS drainpipe installed.

 

The old cast iron pipe is replaced with an ABS plastic drainpipe, from top to bottom.  Note that both the top and the bottom of the existing drainpipe is ABS, just the middle section was cast iron.

So now what?  We had a new non-leaking drainpipe installed, but a big hole in the wall.  Brent and his guys don’t usually do drywall, they are plumbers after all, but Brent has a drywall guy that can repair the wall (for a fee of course).  But since Kathy and have repaired soooooo much drywall over the years, we decided to do this repair as well.  So, I made a plan in my head on how to do this, and the first idea I thought about was to install some 2” x 2” lumber on either side of the pipe and screw the 2” x 2” to the existing studs.  The 2” x 2” lumber is needed to provide a “landing strip” for the drywall to be screwed into.  So, on Saturday the 6^th of December, it was off to Lowe’s to buy some 2” x 2” lumber strips, and of course more screws.  After I got home from Lowe’s, I started on the left side:

Got the 2” x 2” lumber held in place on the left side with a couple of righteous 6” clamps.  I got a strip of plywood on the other side of the stud, so that the clamps don’t damage the existing drywall.

After I got the 2” x 2” lumber held in place with clamps, it was time to screw it into the existing stud, using 3” screws.  A little tricky since I’m left handed and I had to drill the pilot holes and drive the screws with my cordless power driver, but I got the screws in, no problem:  

Starting to screw in the 2” x 2” lumber into the existing stud.

 By the way, when driving long screws like 3”, I put a little soap on the screw threads for lubrication to make it a bit easier to drive the longer screws: 

Just a bit of ordinary soap on the screw threads makes the job soooo much easier!

After I got the left side 2” x 2” lumber installed and screwed in tight, it was time for the right side.  Same thing, get the 2” x 2” clamped in place, and then screw it into the existing stud.  A little easer this time, since I can use my left hand for all the drilling and screwing.    

Right side 2” x 2” lumber clamped in place and ready for screws.

After about an hour of cutting, drilling and screwing, both of the 2” x 2” pieces of lumber were installed and ready for hanging drywall. 

Both 2” x 2” pieces are screwed in place, and ready for drywall.

Even though I had originally thought of replacing the old drywall with a whole new piece, I had saved some of the old drywall, so instead I decided to use the old drywall pieces wherever I could, starting with the top piece:

The original top drywall piece is screwed in tight, using 2” drywall screws.

I had saved the bottom piece as well, and after some 5 days, it had dried out sufficiently so that I could use it.  All it needed was a bunch of drywall screws, and it too was put back into place:

Bottom drywall piece screwed into the 2” x 2” lumber, nice and tight.

That left the middle section of drywall, which, for some reason, I had not saved.  No problem; I cut a template out of cardboard, which fit the opening reasonably well:

Carboard template cut and put temporarily in place to make sure it fits.

With the cardboard template cut, it was back to Lowe’s to buy a piece of drywall.  Fortunately, since I didn’t need a whole 4’ by 8’ sheet of 5/8” drywall, Lowe’s sells 2’ x 2’ sheets, which are perfect for this sort of repair.  After my second trip to Lowe’s that Saturday, it was time to cut out the drywall using the template:

Cutting out the drywall patch from the 2’ x 2’ sheet of drywall using the template.  For cutting drywall, I use a Skil saw, which makes it really easy.

Just so you know, drywall mud is also known by its technical name, which is “Joint Compound”, since it is used to patch up the joints between two adjacent sheets of drywall.  Nevertheless, most people just call it “Drywall Mud”, so when you see “mud” below, that’s what it is!  Also, when doing drywall, Kathy uses a fiberglass mesh tape which is put over the gap, before the mud is put on.  Just so you know…   

Got the drywall patch in place, and got it screwed in tight.  Kathy had already started to put on the drywall tape and drywall mud in the joints.

 

Last little drywall patch was put in place on the bottom of the wall.

  

All of the patching is done, and Kathy got all the drywall mud on the wall, waiting to dry up overnight.

On Sunday morning, Kathy sanded the now dry drywall mud, and after sanding she applied a coat of texture on the wall:

The wall is sanded, and the texture has been sprayed on.

After the texture had dried, Kathy went in and painted the wall; it’s not perfect (as opposed to all her patching and painting she did during our kitchen remodel, which is PERFECT!), but it is in the garage for crying out loud!  No need for perfection in the garage, we just go for function. 

Wall is textured and painted; back to normal!  We put the plywood piece back in, where the big work bench rests.

So, as you can see, fixing a leaking drainpipe can be quite involved, but as all of us who own homes can attest to; “water is the homeowner’s enemy number one!”  If we have leaks, they gotta be fixed, sooner rather than later, lest we end up with a much bigger problem down the road.  Hopefully we won’t have any issues for a while, but with a house that is over 40 years old, there will always be something to fix!