The Saturday Morning Home Repair Blog (SMHRB) is where we gather to discuss the many and varied aspects of home repair. Some here are trained professionals. Some talented DIYers. All are welcome. Please feel encouraged to ask questions, share successes, lament sags, drips and cracks and, as always, share any advice that you have for the rest of us.
Welcome all; it has been awhile since I’ve had the time to do more than a drive-by read and rec. The last few months were spent using my plumbing skills in an effort to clear the drain in our local congressional race. Then last couple weeks gathering a crew for the Black Friday event, maybe someday I’ll be able to sleep in the morning after Thanksgiving.
In between all that goofing around, I found the time to actually get some showers installed for one of the many tech companies found in Silicon Valley. The project consisted of 12 showers, with 6 each in the Men’s and Women’s shower rooms. One shower in each room was wheelchair accessible. All showers are curb-less, tiled, with linear drains along the back wall and the front threshold. The “emergency” drains in front of each shower were a point of contention with the architect; my suggestion was to install 2 standard floor drains in each room were ignored. They were looking for ways to cut cost and the stainless steel linear drains were expensive. Also each “emergency” drain required a trap primer to maintain the trap seal, another added cost and eventual maintenance of the notoriously fallible trap primers.
Specified shower unit
During the bid process a shower unit was specified, it included a built-in diverter valve, hand shower, and “rainfall” showerhead, but no shower valve was specified. Being a competitive bid, I submitted an industry-standard shower valve that would meet ADA code. After first accepting my submitted valve the architect had second thoughts and rejected my valve. When I asked them to specify a valve, they told me they didn’t think they needed a valve to go with the shower unit. Obviously they never understood what it was they originally specified or how it worked, you might say they pulled it out of their…well, you know. The next few days were email hell as I tried to educate and then lead them in a direction to choose a valve that actually matched their needs and complied with codes. It all made sense after learning this was the architects’ first venture into commercial design.
These were not the only “issues” on this project, all projects have them, but not always so frustrating. The finished product is nice and went into use last week, no callbacks yet, so I’ll assume everybody is happy.