here is the house...

More Shoddy Work – Garbage Disposal Edition

One of the awesome things that I insisted on getting when we renovated the house was a garbage disposal. I've never had one but people have told me they are fantastic and life changing so I figured it was something worth adding. We even got the special Kohler Pro sink that has the big sink for dishes and the little sink just for the disposal. When we moved into the house last year I was all gung-ho to use it but within the first week I tried to grind up some lemon and lime peels and the thing totally backed up and had to be taken apart and snaked out. Since then, I've been very wary of using the thing, believing that perhaps the actual disposal unit itself was cheap and not strong enough for what we needed. I always figured we would replace it with a bigger/stronger unit in the future but it wasn't a pressing issue. I just hardly ever used the thing for fear of it backing up on me. Eric used it more often than I did, mostly to grind used tea leaves and I would say in the past year it has backed up half a dozen times and needed to be taken apart and snaked out. So no fun.

Fast forward to last week, late one night Eric was making tea to put in the fridge overnight and have iced the next day. He goes to grind the leaves and the disposal completely backs up again. Awesome! So he takes the whole thing apart and decides this time to go a bit further, taking apart the pipes that go beyond the disposal where the little sink hooks up with the big sink and drains to the main sewer line. And this is what we see:

If you can't orient yourself let me describe to you what you are seeing. The pipes on the left are from the main big sink and the pipe from the disposal that hooks up to the main sink pipe is removed. It hooks into the hole that is right above the bucket. And if you look closely at that hole you can see that the pipe from the main sink was never cut and it covers about 2/3's of that hole which leaves a very small opening for anything coming out of the disposal to drain out. So this is why everything is backing up. Awesome work!

Here's another photo where you can see exactly how small the opening is:

The fact that whoever installed this was such an idiot that they couldn't even be bothered to cut the pipe and knowing left such a small opening from the disposal should be infuriating. But it's really just par for the course at this point. I'm not sure if this was the main contractor's work or the plumber but at this point they are neck and neck for "Idiot of the Century" award so it really doesn't matter anymore now does it? Eric took apart the pipes, cut the opening larger, reassembled them and now I am no longer afraid to use my garbage disposal. So there is a happy ending to the story. Moron contractors, I would wish ill upon them if I wasn't so sure they were messing up their own lives and careers so thoroughly without my intervention. Karma's a bitch, isn't it?

 

Loose Ends

I'm happy to report that we are finally at the point with the house where we can start tying up the loose ends. You know, those pesky little finishing details that weren't quite imperative but were filed under the "one day it would be nice if we could do this" list. We are trying to tackle the common area list first as we just had a new tenant move in and are preparing to go into winter when the hallways and stairs can take quite a beating. In the main vestibule we used the remaining gray rubber molding to give the place a more finished looked, finished spray painting the hall radiator (it was only primed a rust color before) and put down rubber stair treads on the stairs up to the tenants unit. These poor stairs can get really gross during the winter time so we are hoping the rubber treads will protect them and even cut down on a little of the noise from people walking up and down.

Before:

Looks much better after:

In the guest bathroom there was an area behind the glass wall where the contractor just put a piece of sheetrock behind the stainless steel panel facing out—this was fine but from the inside what you saw was the back of a piece of sheetrock, which resembles a piece of brown cardboard. Then there was a couple inches gap between the glass wall and the tile frame around the tub that was large enough for cats to get into and crawl around under the tub—not good, especially with the new kitten. We had Alex construct a stainless backer for this section with an angled piece that covered the hole and made it kitten-proof and finished looking all at once. I don't have before pictures, but here is that after photo:

Alex also helped us out be constructing a small awning for our exterior sunroom door. During the shoddy construction of the sunroom by the original contractor, large gaps where left over the door and caused a lot of water to come in during the rain. While this doesn't plug up the gaps, it should keep the majority of the rain out by deflecting it away from the door. It's installed and primed, but I will post photos once we paint in the same color as the sunroom.

He is also helping us with the buckling stainless backsplash above the kitchen stove vent. Unfortunately we can't take this thin piece of stainless off as it was glued down, but Alex is going to flatten it as best he can and put a thicker piece of stainless over it. He will adhere it with glue that is meant to work in high heat situations and then frame the entire perimeter with stainless steel 1 inch channel to keep the edges from creeping up again. It's the best we can do with this shoddy installation with ripping out the whole thing.

Here's a reminder of what it looks like now:

Alex is also going to use some more decorative screws since they are so exposed. He too shook his head at the shoddiness of this construction job and the contractor was the friend/GC who brought Alex on this job in the first place! Well, at least we can still depend on Alex to get things done right.

He's also going to help us with the backsplash under the vent as currently it's just a thin piece of stainless barely attached to some metal studs coming a few inches off another sheet on stainless on the wall. It looks okay, but it's awfully flimsy and hard to clean since there is no rigidity behind it. It also flaps about when the fans are turned up high and the top edge is shoddily unfinished along with the boring exposed screws. Unfortunately the sides of this monstrosity were also glued to the stainless behind it so removing it completely is not an option unless we want to redo the whole entire kitchen backsplash. Alex plans to reinforce the top few inches with cement board backer and create a more finished top edge which should look nicer and give it some more rigidity. He will also replace these ugly screws with something more attractive. Oh, what a luxury it must be to have things done right the first time you pay for it!

In this photo you can see the unfinished top edge and ugly screws. I'll put pics up of the finished product once it is installed.