Bill’s Videos
Home Improvement Projects
Radiant Floor Heating
In the Fall of 2012, I was renovating the first two bathrooms in my mother’s house. Both bathrooms were served by 1924 vintage cast iron drain-waste-vent pipes and late 1940s-era galvanized steel vents and water lines. I demoed the room except for the ceiling. I found rotten cast iron and galvanized steel lines from the roof to the basement. I learned how to demo and replace them with PVC and PEX.
Now, after new plumbing, framing, drywall, and electrical, it is time for the fun stuff. I primed the concrete floorboards, sealed all gaps around the floor, and hot-glued and tacked down the heating mats. I then cut pieces of cardboard to act as “coffer dams” to hold in the liquid self-leveling concrete.
When the floor and mats were ready, I mixed the self-leveling concrete outside, carefully lugged it upstairs in the bucket, and slowly poured it. It set up as advertised!
I wired up the control unit and tested the mats the next day. My cat quickly discovered the warm floor. I enjoyed the heated floor when I finished the bathroom.
PEX, Lines Are Pressurized
When I was renovating the first of the two bathrooms in my mother’s house, a master plumber friend suggested I run two pairs of hot/cold PEX to the second floor: one pair for the “Kids” bathroom and the other for the “Parents” bathroom. The bathrooms were back to back, so I ran and capped the second pair of PEX lines in the shared wall. I knew I’d renovate Mom’s bathroom one day.
I worked all day Saturday, learning as I went. I had dinner and then finished pressure testing the lines late in the evening. I later improved upon my setup with a PEX manifold.
Bathroom Tour
In this video, I am running wire for the electric radiant floor heat system. I spent a lot of time in the attic and crawl space and carefully planned all the work to be done in the winter. Think of it as project management by a do-it-yourself person. That attic is an oven in the summer.
Radiator Repair
I shot this video during a cold January afternoon. I was between paying jobs that day and wanted to fix the leaking radiator. The radiator leaked onto the living room ceiling below, and I was ordered to fix it.
I rushed to get the radiator repaired and turn the heat back on. I ran into problems and needed more time to set up the camera correctly. I apologize for the poor quality of the videography. I was in a rush and could have planned better. But I fixed the leak, then patched and painted the ceiling below.05
Bill’s SLIDES
Bathroom project new tiles
Kitchen Cooper Feed Lines
Kiln project for bill’s mother
Bedroom Window replacement
