My New House & Workshop

[Uncle Gump]

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Probably varies by area, here the city enjoys tearing up the street and I don't think they let anyone else have the fun.

 

[Uncle Gump]

In Michigan I think you had to be licenced and bonded in the city you were working.

 

[franklin2]

This has me wondering if they could just reroute it so it doesn't have to go under the shop? Does it have to maintain the original connection with the main sewer, or can that be relocated as well?

Problem is, your house outlet is at one height, the connection to the city is at a lower height. You have to maintain a certain slope in the pipe in all areas of the pipe, unless you add a pump. It's hard to make the pipe meander all over the place and maintain the slope of the pipe you need.

A pump would work though they are not cheap.

 

[Rick W]

A few thoughts:

Sewer camera is an excellent idea. It shouldn’t be very expensive and it will tell you if there’s any failures in the line. It can also tell you where that failure is (you measure from where you put the camera in along the snake that holds it). If it’s a failure or a root or such, then you’ll know exactly where to cut and dig.

From what I’ve seen and heard, I highly suspect the building did settle on top of the sewer line and there is a belly in it. I think I mentioned already to expose the line on either side of the shop building as well as between the shop and the House, without breaking up the slabs there. You’ll learn a lot, it won’t be wasted time.

But let me give you another thought. You didn’t want to move the bathroom in the shop building in the original gyrations. Consider this. You don’t have to tear down the addition to cut a trench across the floor. If you locate the sewer on both sides of the addition on the shop building, You can cut out a 12-18 inch wide trench across the floor, but stop about 12 or 18 inches from each wall on the inside. Using a narrow shovel or a post hole digger, you can poke a hole through the dirt underneath the wall on each side without damaging the wall. When you’re burying it, just pack the dirt in really hard under the wall and for the first foot or two outside the wall.

If you get a ditch witch, cheap to rent, don’t cut right down the middle. Rather, ditch witch it on either side of the trench, and the centerpiece will come out easily with shovels. If your dirt out there is anywhere hard, if you cut right down the middle, it can actually be really hard to widen widen the ditch which cuts.

Then I would just run a new 3 inch or 4 inch line from close to the house to where it connects to the sewer.

While you may not need permits and such where you are, tapping into a public sewer is a big deal everywhere because of the negative consequences if something goes wrong. As long as you’ve got the slope from the house to the sewer, I would leave well enough alone and tap in to the old sewer a couple of feet from the main sewer. Put a clean Out right on top of it.

if you’re going to go to all this trouble, it’s peanuts to relocate that bathroom and get it out-of-the-way of the middle of the building. You can put it along the sewer line, or for a little bit more cutting you could put it in the back corner of the whole building, where it’s totally out-of-the-way.

I guess my biggest suggestion is to back up and take a look at the forest and ignore the trees. It sounds like you are committing yourself to dying from 1000 cuts instead of one stab to the heart. My point is, if it was me, And I planned on living there forever, I would just put a new line in from the house to the street, and I move the bathroom while I was at it. It’s only one day to saw cut everything and ditch witch it, and a second day to put the pipe in and bury it. I would cover it with Concrete when you pour the slab for whatever it is you’re going to do for a garage.

Consider the stress factor too. You already spent over a grand on the sewer, the camera will be a few hundred, anything you do in a 6 x 8 area will be 1000, etc. etc., and you’ll still have a half old worn out system. Rent a saw and rent a ditch witch and get a couple of rental laborers, bthe pipe and just do it. You’d be done with it in two weeks, and if you decide to move the bathroom, that opens up all kinds of possibilities for your shop.

Could you humor me another time, and just with a pen on your site Platt, draw a line where you think that sewer line goes from the house to the city sewer. I want to know where it is relative to the two slabs that are between the House and the Alley.

BTW, the city/county council planning department should have a blueprint of the main sewer lines and your sewer lines. It may even be available online.

I think once again, this sounds like a big job, and it’s just not that big a deal.

My one last thought is that in the grand scheme of things a little bit of extra pipe and a cleanout is peanuts. I would put a clean out on both sides of the shop building, as well as one wherever you connect by the house. I would make them double sweeps where you can run the snake in either direction.

if you route a new pipe around your building, make sure you’ve got a clean out at every turn that is 22 1/2° or more.

i’ll say it again, consider the stress factor. You can do it and be done with it. In the blink of an eye you’ll be my age, @Dirtman will have a long white beard, and none of us will be able to do it!

My 2cents, hope it helps.

 

[Jim Oaks]

The red line shows roughly where the sewer line runs. There is a cleanout near the bottom right corner of the concrete patio. The green shows where 5 or 6 feet of the red line was replaced. Another cleanout was added on the right of the building in the alley that swoops towards the main sewer to the right.

Another question is where does the sewer pipe for the shop bathroom connect with the house sewer line? My guess is it came straight out of the back of the building until it hit the house sewer line, which is now under that building.

@Rick W I'm not following what you're saying.

If this last contractor tells me he can raise the roof, I'm keeping the building as is with just a taller ceiling and a garage door at the street.

If he gives me a quote higher than building a steel building, I'm going to look at knocking down the rear addition of the building and adding it there.

If that's to expensive my last option is to build a building where the concrete pad is between the house and shop.

The building has a 6-foot wide double man door, so the can probably get some equipment in there, but the ceiling is only 7.5 feet high.

Are you saying to replace the line with a new line, or lay a new line next to the old one? Digging along next to that line should show where the shop bathroom ties in.

I know you want me to move the bathroom. All this additional work adds up. I have $20k in savings. I could come up with another $3k - $5k by late summer, but that's it.

 

[Roert42]

Are you saying to replace the line with a new line, or lay a new line next to the old one? Digging along next to that line should show where the shop bathroom ties in.

I know you want me to move the bathroom. All this additional work adds up. I have $20k in savings. I could come up with another $3k - $5k by late summer, but that's it.

He’s saying you should just replace the whole line, yourself to save money. Then, while your at it, move the bathroom, because you’ve already got a bunch of the work done.

 

[97RangerXLT]

Jim, to be honest, at this point I would fix the sewer issues before anything else. if you can do that yourself, that should save some bucks. I would also think about waiting a year before any major renovations just to see if the lumber prices come down. I would only budget half of that 20k and leave the other half in savings, just because who knows what fresh hell is going to come up in the future, and it is nice to have that cushion to fall back on.

Once the mechanicals of the property are working correctly, then look at what you want to do with the building. But Rick is right, if you got to trench through the building anyways for the sewer, that would be the time to think about moving the bathroom. it may only add a few hundred bucks to the cost of the sewer replacement. You also want to make sure that when you put in the new line it is graded in such away that you don't put another belly in it down toward the city end.

And as for the current issue... belly or not, if the toilet is gurgling it sounds like there is not enough flow through the pipe, and even with the belly it should drain from the toilet, as the toilet is the highest point between the line and the city sewer. I would say you got some more blockage somewhere, and I would find a plumber with a scope/ cam to search it out.

AJ

 

[ElectraRider]

You probably have VCP pipe, I would recommend going with sch 40 pipe it will stand up better than sdr 35 plastic pipe. Also going around your building may not work depending on how much fall there is from the house to property line. The standard fall for sewer pipe is 1/4 inch per foot to the main. We are required to install double clean outs at the house and then every 100 foot there after. Of course city codes very and of course the state codes. Best to dig up your line at the house and at property and shoot it to see just how much fall you have to work with. My two cents lift stations suck, gravity never sleeps.

 

[ElectraRider]

Oh and above all else do get locates, I have been doing this for 35 years and have cut through gas lines telephone electric water sewer you name it I probably cut it, my bad.

 

[Rick W]

@Jim Oaks

First, let me say I’m a bad friend, a dog. I am pushy and “take charge,” a character flaw that has been well honed in 50 years of running stuff. I completely apologize if I’m coming across that way, absolutely not my intention. I’m not pressing you to move the bathroom, and it is not my intent to press you to do anything. Your place, your money, your call. I’m trying to provide options for you to get what you want, and hopefully save you money in the process.

Okay, now that you and the Redhead both think I’m a jerk, let me push some more....

Forget about the shop for a minute, and let’s focus on the sewer line.

I am proposing you go straight to replacing the entire sewer line. I don’t have any better x-ray vision than any of you guys, but I’ve probably looked at buildings and situations like this like a lot of you guys have looked at Ranger engines and brakes. I think there’s a easy way to proceed to be thoughtful about money without doing things twice.

First, we know the existing sewer line is bell and gosset terra-cotta. Terra-cotta is famous for settling since it has no structural integrity over the length, it will move at the joints. And from the look of the addition, It’s highly likely the addition settled a little bit and maybe pushed the pipe down. I know that it’s BGTC from this picture you sent

Also, It looks like the sewer line is only 2 feet deep. What I can’t tell is how hard it is to dig in your soil. Georgia red clay is like digging in cement.

What’s the goal? The goal is to have a approximately 1/4 inch per foot fall from the house to the main sewer in the alley. It must have the same quarter inch per foot fall from the crapper flange elbow to the property sewer line.

The existing BGTC line predates the addition on the shop, so it is highly likely that the crapper line simply comes out of the original shop perpendicular to the sewer line and should tie in with a sweep elbow. So I think you have this:

Do you have access to a builders level? The site glass on a tripod so you can measure elevations? You can rent one for pennies and they are pretty easy to use. DO NOT DO ANY IF THIS WITHOUT ONE!!!!

Step one. Get a day laborer and dig down in three spots: C01, CO2, and CO3 on this next drawing. You don’t have to dig up the pipe, you just have to dig down enough that you expose about 6 inches of the BGTC to get the elevation. You’re making sure that CO1 falls to CO2 and then falls to CO3. 1-2 should drop about 11.25 inches, 2-3 about 6.25 inches. If you are far off that, STOP, let me know and let’s regroup!

I’m pretty sure those dimensions will be close, but that still doesn’t tell us if it’s dipping in the middle of the building or even across the yard. Again, rather than dying of 1000 cuts, I would just dig the pipe up from the house all the way out to the tap in the street and replace it. To good rent a grunts can dig that up in a couple three hours. If the soil is hard, rent a little ditch witch and cut two ditches straddling the line and then knock out the center exposing the whole line.

As far as cutting the slab in the building, look at this:

Most of the slab is probably no more than 4 inches thick, might even be 2 1/2 or 3 inches thick, probably is not a sophisticated hard mix, and may or may not have wire in it. If it was done right at all, there should be a turn down underneath the block which is the footer for the block wall. You want to cut a trench across the building, but you DO NOT want to cut through any part of that footing. So I would start about 18 inches inside each wall and cut across the slab, then cut across each end parallel to the wall, and break that out.

Then dig down and identify the bottom of the footing on each side, and down to the pipe. Let me emphasize, do not dig anything out underneath the footing, you just want to find out where the bottom of it is.

Now, with the exception of a 2 foot section underneath each wall, you can dig up and expose the entire length of pipe. From your plat, it’s less than 50 feet across the yard, 20 feet across the building, and whatever less than 10 feet to the sewer tap. That’s four lengths of pipe, child’s play!

If the three elevations above are close, all you have to do is assemble that pipe maintaining those elevations in those three spots. The PVC pipe has structural integrity, so as long as you bed it in some mildly compacted soil the entire length, it should never settle again.

The three double sweep clean outs I propose, one, two and three, ate about $100 of insurance. Since you will have to re-tap the bathroom line into the new line, I would put a double clean out between the bathroom line and the sweep into the mainline, again just insurance.

Rent a dry cut saw by yourself and cut the slab. Then get a couple of rent a grunts and dig up the line, and break out the slab. I would have 100 feet of pipe and the cleanouts and extra couplings in case you have to cut a couple short sections sitting there. Whatever you don’t use you can return. But when you have the whole thing exposed, you can measure the depth and see if there’s a dip - I suspect if there’s a dip it’s a big one - and you will know whether it makes sense to just do a patch or to replace the entire line.

use the same inside diameter pipe as the BGTC. When you are installing the pipe you want to make sure there are no rough edges or crooked fittings were those together. Then, when you dropped your hot wheels and shot glasses and bedroom toys down the sewer line, they won’t hang up at the joints and block up the line.

There’s also one concept we learned in engineering school: terra-cotta is crap and PVC is great. If it was me, for no more trouble than this is and no more expense, I would replace the whole line. Everything indicates it’s under the building, whatever “it” is, but I’d still replace the whole line.

Now, back to your shop design. @97RangerXLT got it right, IF (no one is pushing) you ever consider moving the bathroom, this would be the time to do it, the least expensive option. And have you considered putting in a slop sink? A mop basin? A shower? A bidet? Whatever, now’s the time to do it! (Sorry for the image of Jim on a bidet in his shop, guys).

My 2 cents, but I know from past experience that this one is worth 20 or 30 cents or more, but it’s your call, and I will support you no matter how you want March in to hell!!!!

 

[Rick W]

Afterthought, your existing pipe could be cast iron, but it’s the exact same problem because of the cemented frequent joints.

And a couple more thoughts on your existing building. It’s got a couple of rough edges, but I actually don’t see anything wrong with it that would justify replacing it. If it has settled, and the walls have only the minor cracks I’ve seen, that tells me that the walls are better than the foundation!

I am going to press one point, not that you should do or not do anything, it’s about the way you may be thinking about it. This is not a criticism or a challenge in any way. I’m very direct, but this is offered in friendship to help you.

Your shop, any of our shops, is more like a little manufacturing factory that it is like a house. In architecture and engineering one of the cornerstone concepts is “function over form.“ The meaning is to make sure the facility will do every single thing you want and do with the way you want it done before you start thinking about what it will look like. Placement of the machinery, and the workflow are paramount above all else.

So what does that mean? I suspect you may be looking at this the way a lot of my customers look at a new addition to their factory or even a new factory. They have seen things they like, and they assume that if they get that building or that thing, it will work for what they want to do. That is backward thinking. Again, no insult to you at all, it’s a very common misstep, but the building should be designed around specifically what you want to do, and it should not copy what somebody else did that you “think“ will then work for your needs.

That is why I suggested making a list of all of the things you want in your building and you would want to do in your building: want the F150 in, have it high enough to put the Ranger on jackstands, drill press, tablesaw, bathroom, etc. etc., down to the smallest detail. Don’t think about where they would sit in the existing building, just make a list of everything you would want to have.

From that list, in an ideal world with an infinite budget, then you start to lay out the building which will show what it should look like. Of course that’s not reality, but it’s not that far from reality. Of course you are going to start with what you’ve got. But I would play dollhouse* with all those things in your existing building.

I’m not joking about the “doll house” either. On almost every project I’ve done, I have one of my guys make to-scale cut outs of all the major pieces of equipment and all of the major rooms, and then as we go to each section we make cut outs of everything down to the desks and chairs, and we literally play “doll house.” Few people can actually visualize such things. For the cost of a little time and a few sheets of paper, you can get a vision of what it’s really going to look like before you spend any real money.

The reason I have suggested moving the bathroom several times is because I don’t think that’s a big job at all. And I know it’s not! But that’s because I’ve done it a zillion times. I have listened to you on all the different things you’ve mentioned you’d like to see in the shop, and considering your desires, that’s where my “bump out” design came from (and I am NOT pressing that option now). And I am positive I don’t know more than 10% of what you’d actually like to have! It’s not what I wanted, it’s what I put together knowing what you would like to have in the building, including leaving the bathroom where it is. Just as I know that going straight to replacing the entire PVC line is the best decision to keep that house a long time, and if you do that, moving the bathroom is even less expensive. Just like you know the details in your career.

@Jim Oaks , you have created a great thing here with TRS. I know you know a lot of these guys like they were your brother and you trust them. I also know we don’t know each other at all, and in this world, why on earth would you trust me! If you knew me better, you know how scary that concept is! But I have no dog in this hunt except I love doing this stuff, I’m happy to help you, and like Trump said, what do you have to lose? A lot of my suggestions don’t cost you any money to check them out before spending real money. & I agree with @97RangerXLT, keep a reserve, Biden happens!! But I wouldn’t compromise my design, I would just figure out how to do it in phases without spending money twice.

This last contractor sounds like he is the guy you were looking for. But again, with every respect, you’re looking at a concept to get a price without having done the detail of what you want to put in it. Which brings me to another thought, Builders build, they don’t generally do design. A lot of them will help you think out what you want to do from what they’ve done before, but that is not the same as a “function over form” approach.

As always, you’re welcome to call me anytime, it’s all my two cents, which is about five bucks short of getting a coffee these days !!

 

[1990RangerinSK]

And you people think I'm an idiot for pooping in the furnace...

I can't speak for anybody else, but I don't think you're an idiot for pooping in the furnace. I just think you're not house broken.

 

[1990RangerinSK]

My two cents lift stations suck, gravity never sleeps.

*snicker* I ought to call the pun police on you!

 

[Dirtman]

I can't speak for anybody else, but I don't think you're an idiot for pooping in the furnace. I just think you're not house broken.

So you poop outside on the lawn? Because thats the definition of house broken...