Drained... of our Money

The plumber, Rick, arrived today at approximately 9:40 to start the next phase of repairing our shower.  He was a 62-year-old man who knew all of the tricks of the trade, and we have to admit that he was detailed and meticulous in what he did.  We were pleased with the results.

He was quite a character, and Rick enjoyed talking to him and learning the process as the man worked to dig up the old drain, to remove the old drain and the p-trap, to move the new drain over a slight bit so it is more centered, and to connect everything to our old drain system.

A bucket of concrete floor chips and a mound of dirt are
the results of Rick digging up the old drain.  The snub of
pipe to the left of the hole leads to the main drain system.

After Plumber Rick air-hammered and dug up the old drain, he told us that what Andy had done actually was legal.  Andy had installed a rubber gasket under the piece that he connected to the old drain, so what he did was acceptable.  It still was installed too low for us to use as a functioning drain (especially after Andy cemented the whole thing in without bothering to raise it up at all), so in the end we are not sorry that we had it removed.  We have much more confidence in the new installation.

Plumber Rick works on putting together the
new drain and p-trap.

Plumber Rick agreed that since the floor was open, we chose wisely to have the p-trap removed and a new one put in. When I saw the gunk that was in the 55 year old p-trap, I had to agree.  Plumber Rick did a great job of attaching the new system to the old pipes.  He even angled the new configuration to move it more toward the center of the shower floor. It is not dead-center, but it is better.

A new drain and p-trap use a rubber banded coupler to connect
the new drain to the old drainage system.

The old p-trap had done its duty and had seen better days.

Once he had added the chipped out stone around the drain, he mixed a loose slurry of concrete to hold it all together.  He worked for quite a while to make sure that the new drain was perfectly level.  That will make Matt's job of installing the tile much easier.

The new drain peeks out of the patched sub-floor of the shower.

We were both a little surprised when Plumber Rick came up with a bill of $337.80 for his work.  He charged us $40 for a "tool charge," which we figure was either the use of his jack hammer or the replacement of the saw blade that broke while he was cutting off the old drain pipe. Isn't that the cost of doing business, though?  He rounded up to the next hour for labor, and in the end, we feel we were ripped off a bit by the local plumbing company.

So far we have almost $338 into this plumbing job, and we know that we have at least another $450 to go for when he returns to put in the shower pan.  Could we put in a pan ourselves?  Probably, but then we have no recourse should the pan leak or something else go wrong.  My Rick is so disgusted with this whole process that he said he won't even be in the house when the contractors come back in to finish the work.  I don't care.  I just want this all done.

After Plumber Rick left, we drove to Floor Decor to look at grout.  We knew we needed to match the grout in the wall for the last tier of tile, and Matt had suggested that we perhaps look for a slightly darker grout for the floor.  Much to our dismay, when we walked into the store, there stood Mike, the tile contractor, at the check-out. Rick told him what we were doing, and he offered to come back to help us with the grout.

Mike took his order out to his truck and then met us by the grout.  I am glad that he was there because he knew what kind of grout to buy (unsanded for the walls and sanded for the floor).  We selected a small bag of #77 Frost for the walls.  Mike said to get a larger bag of the #94 Warm Gray grout for the floor since twice as much grout cost only a couple of dollars more.

When we got to the check out, Mike stuck us with the bill for the grout since he "had to get going to pick up his brother."  That really pissed Rick off since we should not have had to pay for the grout.  We already picked up the sizable tab for the plumber and $41 more for the replacement wall tile.  The only good thing about picking up and paying for the grout is that we will not have to wait for Mike to pick up the grout since we have both the tile and the grout in our possession.  Also, since we bought it, we are going to hang on to any left-over grout in case we need to patch or at least match the grout in the future.

I have been working on my family genealogy for the last few days, and as I tried to control my frustration once again, I thought of those long-gone relatives.  Did they have problems during their lives, some of which were tragic or seemingly insurmountable?  I am positive that they did.  Did any of their decisions or actions dramatically change the course of mankind?  Not in the least.  In the whole scheme of things, our problems are tiny and will disappear when we leave this earth.  Life will go on.  Paying so much more for this job is frustrating, but for now we have food on the table, a warm roof over our heads, family that we love, and enough in the bank to pay our taxes. Life will, indeed, go on.