Stink pipes, horsehair, and dirt - oh my!

As some of you know, we had one of those wonderful homeowner experiences: a leaking ceiling due to a cracked pipe. The plumbing repair person will come on Wednesday to remove some length of the pipe and replace it with PVC. As much as we're trying to avoid any plastics, the PVC is really the best solution for this particular repair. We know it will last forever and a cast iron replacement would have cost twice as much.

It's come to our attention that not everyone knows what a stink pipe is. Your building undoubtedly has at least one per toilet and sink. Basically, it is a sewer vent pipe. It is needed so that your plumbing works properly. Every time you flush the toilet or rinse something in the sink, the water flows into the sewerage system. At the same time, air is vented through the stink pipe, usually through the roof, taking all of the odors of your plumbing with it.

So, what does a hole in a stink pipe look like? Just like this:


Looking at the close up, I haven't a clue what is even holding that one part in place.

In preparation for the repair and the installation of a new ceiling, the Good Mr. Dr. spent the better part of the day doing demolition. There were foam ceiling panels in this room. Not quite the institutional looking ones that were in the parlor, but equally ugly. Just above these panels was the original horsehair plaster ceiling. Again, why they decided to put the foam panels just below the original ceiling is beyond us. It wasn't even a dropped ceiling. Regardless, if you remember, removing horsehair plaster is a dirty job, as the good Mr. Dr. can demonstrate:

"I will not be doing this again anytime soon."

"I need a drink."

Needless to say, the rest of the day was spent vacuuming, mopping, and wiping down surfaces to make it reasonably safe for Simba. The part that really sucks is that we'll have to do all of this cleaning again after the plasterers put up a new ceiling. Ugh.

We'll post some pictures of the crawl space in this room later this week.

Do us a favor and pray for no rain.