Lady did you ever get your last build finished? Seem like it's been a few months.
More like a year. Swapping out the innards in my present case to the one I modded is going to take at least one long day. Since I finished the case, my back and allergies haven't been doing all that well. I also wound up spending two months out of town helping out some friends (that required some recovery time after I got back home). Then I got the "brilliant" idea to upgrade my TV antenna system prior to getting my TV tuners. A job that would have taken two days, or maybe even just one long day, ten years ago took me three weeks because I had to work short periods, then rest a while, then recover for a few days before I tackled any more.
About the time I recovered from that, my water heater died. Replacing that was a nightmare because the previous occupants of my mobile home had the previous water heater burst. It damaged and partially collapsed the particle board floor underneath the water heater but, instead of replacing that section of floor, they just stuck the replacement water heater in there, even though it leaned at a crazy angle. They even put an offset in the flue pipe to accommodate the lean. Adding insult to injury, there were some drain pipes underneath that had been damaged by the sagged floor and had to be replaced. I initially hired a highly recommended plumbing, electrical, and A/C repair company in my area that initially claimed they could do the entire job. The plumber they sent out was able to get the old water heater out but said I would have to hire someone else to do the floor. The guy he recommended came out and partially demoed the floor (something that overpriced plumber could have easily done himself). At that point, we both figured it would be better to let the plumber fix the drain lines before putting in the new floor, which he thought he would have to do piecemeal because of the plumbing that was in the way so we notified the plumber to come on out. This was Tuesday late afternoon.
The plumber came back late Wednesday morning and found another leak he had missed the first time, then said he had to order parts to fix it and had another job to go to. He drives a huge step van (one of dozens in the company's fleet) full of parts and he didn't have the parts I later bought at Home Depot? I waited for his call until I got P.O.ed Friday morning and tried calling the company. I kept getting told they would call right back but they never did. In the meantime, the trailer park handy man came by and wanted to know if I wanted to get rid of the old water heater. While we talked, he offer to do the entire job on Sunday for way less than what the plumber was going to charge so I hired him. All I had to do was get the parts and the water heater, which I did that day. Funny thing; when I called to fire the first plumber, all of a sudden, I was getting plenty of call backs from them. All of a sudden, the plumber was scheduled to come out the next morning yet, before that, no one knew squat.
Saturday, I figured out how to replace the floor in one piece rather than piecemeal (it involved temporarily removing a gas pipe, a drain pipe, and a vent pipe), then installed the joist hangers (a real chore because I to play dodgem with all the plumbing; my bad back didn't help any, either). Then I had to make up three floor joists and notch them out to clear the pipes. The center one was a bear because I wanted it to rest on a steel outrigger that went from the main rail to the outer wall sill plate to get as much strength as possible, especially since the old floor frame had been spliced right at a huge notch (idiots!). I spent the rest of the day making a floor template (that one I did piecemeal with cardboard and duct tape).
The handyman showed up at 10:30 Sunday morning and got to work on the drains, the hardest part of the job, and I made a couple of Home Depot runs for unexpected parts. Except for the drain for the TPRV (he came back Tuesday evening and took care of that), the entire job was finished by 3 PM (my getting started on the floor framing and the template saved a few hours). That hot shower that night sure beat the holy hairy heck out of sponge baths! I did some crack sealing Wednesday morning where a vent pipe went through the roof and around the new hole for the last drain pipe and, other than needing a new water heater compartment door (a job that will keep 'til the weather cools), the job is done.
All the pipe manipulation when shoehorning in the new floor broke the drain pipe on the bottom of my bathroom sink. I don't blame the handyman since the trap wasn't all the tight on the tailpiece and should have just "slud" off so it must have been ready to break already. I waddled down to Home Despot and got the only brass pop-up drain they had and wasted over three hours trying to install the poorly designed sorry piece of (censored) and still couldn't get the stupid thing to stop leaking. The next morning, I went to Ace Hardware and got a good one. I had it installed and leak free in a little over 30 minutes. I ordered (and have received) a new faucet since everything else is now new but I'm going to have to wait a while to recover before I install it (the space under the sink is really tiny). I really wrecked my back messing around that weekend.
I really want to get that case swap done because I'm sick and tired of playing dodgem with it in my hallway.
