The laundry room is just a rectangle with only 2 cutouts (dryer vent and 1 AC/heat vent). Laying the actual floor went pretty easy. We still ended up tracing the room and cutouts onto paper and using that to cut the vinyl outside. This got us close but we still had to do a little trimming here and there once we got it down. The contact cement like glue we used in the bathrooms worked ok here - better than in the master bath. I'm still working on the threshold - that is always a challenge I am finding.
Here is the final floor result:
The main challenge with this room was the plumbing I did first. I'm a bit tired of plumbing now. The problem started with the cold water valve to the washing machine - it was "broken" and could not be shut off. Replacing the flooring required removing the washing machine and dryer but that was difficult with the broken valve. I decided to replace the existing gate valves with 1/4 turn ball valves instead of trying to repair the seal in the existing valve (which is what I found was wrong). To replace the valves, I had to cut a hole in the wall to cut off the existing copper tube. I initially decided to use "Shark Bite" style push-in connectors to connect the new valves (with copper stubs out that I solder on) to the existing copper. I ended up changing that but I'll explain that in a minute. Once done though, I decided to make a small wooden panel to allow future access to the PEX/copper connections instead of just patching it back over.
My wife has been wanting a water filter on the cold water supply to the washing machine. I figured this was a good time to install that since I was always messing with the plumbing. I have tools to install PEX tubing so I used that along with a few appropriate copper fittings and a shark bite fitting to install the water filter on the wall next to the box containing the washing machine valves. On my first test after installation, I turned the water on too fast and the shark bite fitting at the cold water inlet to the filter popped off and sprayed everywhere. It was at that moment I decided to go back and remove the 3 shark bite fittings and use PEX, Apollo pinch clamps and solder-on PEX to copper fittings. It took well over an hour to get the 3 shark bite fittings off and my hands felt like mush when done. I had to go under the house to solder on copper to PEX fittings - I decided to install those on a horizontal section since I didn't trust my uphill soldering. It took about 3 hours or so to get it done; would have been less but I had to cut off the clamps on my initial PEX work and redo it all. I used new sections of tubing since I wasn't sure if crimping the clamp in the same spot is OK or not - better safe than sorry. With the PEX in place and correctly tightened threaded connections, the water filter works fine.
A few details on how I mounted the water filter. I took 2 copper coated straight pipe hangers and bent them on my vise in a stair-step shape (2 bends). I then enlarged a middle hole in each one to an appropriate size to go over the pipe/connection on each side of the water filter. I'll have to go back and get some pics at a later date.
Here is the water filter setup below. I added a couple bolts to tie the 2 brackets together which helps stiffen things up and keep it from moving much. I do need to be a touch careful since the filter housing will swing a bit forward/back - maybe I will add a small attachment to the bracket to the filter top since it does have some appropriate holes on top for that.
Another minor but unexpected need showed up after running a few loads of laundry - we now have a water hammer issue. A quick trip to Lowes and about $10 for a water hammer arrester should fix that.
The one you see here is: Water Hammer Arrester
Another detail desired by the wife was a place to hang empty clothes hangers again. For this I bought 2 pipe hangers of the metal loop style with a straight section having some holes which are intended for fasteners. The fastener holes include some which are 1/4" in diameter. It just happens that I bought a 4' section of 1/4" steel rod which just fits in those holes. So I cut the rod down to about 32" and cut off the loops from the pipe hangers - leaving just the straight sections with the small holes. I bent those into and "L" shape and screwed each using the long leg of the "L" to the underside of the shelf above the dryer about 31.5" apart with one end very close to the wall. I then took the 1/4" rod and drilled a 3/32" through-hole in an end. I fed the rod through the 1/4" holes in the short leg in each bracket. The rod end with the 3/32" hole is near the wall and a small piece of wire was run through the hole and twisted to prevent the rod from slipping out of the brackets.
The original hangers early in the process.
Not a great pick but here I am drilling the 3/32" hole in the rod with the drill press. I used a thin (just under 1/4") piece of scrap wood under the rod in the vice to both raise the rod to where the relatively short bit can reach and to provide a good place for the bit to penetrate into on the far side of the rod.
Here is what the final product looks like with a little paint on things. I could raise it about 1/2" but as is only 1 style of hanger rubs a little on the dryer.
Hope you enjoyed..
God Bless!
Scott
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