FIRST FIX PLUMBING
Drewett & Hunt is taking care of the main plumbing install in terms of the hot and cold feeds, soil pipes etc through their sub-contractor, Will Machin of Machin Plumbing & Heating. His work will also include bringing the water supply into the building and putting in the pipework for the basement sump pumps. We were particularly keen to get the later job done ASAP, given we’d had them on site for a while and were paying to rent a temporary one in the mean time.
On a project like this, where the space heating supply is taken care of by another system, there wasn’t actually a great deal of planning required before he got to site. Will’s been happy to work around the other trades (while still keeping his part of the job as neat and compact as possible). Yes, he needed to know what shower mixers, trays, taps etc we were installing, and where – but feeding the plumbing infrastructure through is pretty straightforward, especially as the bulk of it is in push-fit plastic. The main exceptions are such as gas supplies (we have one in the living room for our stove) and mains water feeds into the hot water cylinder, which need to be in copper.
Most of the plumbing is done in push-fit plastic. This is quick to install, interchangeable with copper, won’t scale and the elasticity of the piping actually reduces the likelihood of bursts. And as there’s no hot work (soldering), there’s less risk during the construction phase, too.
Probably the most complex bit of the job is going to be getting the supply into the building and adding an outside tap. Graven Hill’s service box is useful in many ways, but there are a few quirks – one of which is that the water pipe runs into a concreted upstand, with no T-piece below ground to tap into. We’ve heard of other self builders on the site breaking out the concrete to make the connection.