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- over 450,000 plumbing related posts
The very popular general plumbing, toilets, sinks, faucets, pump problems, questions and answers discussion Forum
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Author:
sum (FL)
I noticed some of you indicated in various threads that you worked on old house plumbing. 50 year old houses, 100 year old houses etc...
what is the oldest house you ever worked on? doesn't even need to be a "house" could be any structure, if you worked on a roman aquaduct that's two thousand years old that would be way cool.
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Author:
hj
When I was in Chicago we would work in homes where newspapers were used for insulation. We could date the house by their date of publication. It was interesting to see 1935 Dodge advertisements for $595.00, or less. But then the radio, heater, bumpers, spare tire, sometimes the back seat, etc. were all "accessories".
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Author:
chadschloss78 (MI)
The house I recently bought to fix up was built in 1955. I found a complete paper from nov. 1,1955 and was looking at what everything used to cost. I even found a build sheet list for the house. It is an eye opener  This house didn't have insulation at the time of build from what I could tell; it was resided in vynal a few years ago and I see someone popped holes in the old cedar shake to spray in that blown-in stuff some years ago. My grandpa used to tell me that they would stuff hay/straw/newspaper or whatever in the walls on some of the jobs he used to work on. strange how things change.
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Author:
m & m (MD)
I've worked in houses that the Brits built here on the Chesapeake Bay back in the late 1700's. Of course, back then the only plumbing was the outhouse in the back yard. There was no plumbing put in the houses until the 1900's. Many of these houses have been restored and the original log construction is still visible on the interior.
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Author:
North Carolina Plumber (NC)
I've plumbed several old buildings from the late 1800's. Some were even registered as historical landmarks. I just recently did one that use to be a feed and grain store, now its a restaurant. It was in the big flood of 1940 and still to this day theres silt piled up several inches on the beams underneath the building.
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Author:
jimmy-o (CA)
There are a couple of houses in my home town built about the 1670's. I never got to look at the plumbing, which obviously was done later!
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Author:
HytechPlumber (LA)
I worked on some pretty old buildings inside and near the French Quarter in New Orleans. Many from the mid to late 1800's.
There is a "Historic" board that will deny permits for certain modern repairs. They want everything to match or go with the historic value of the historic French Quarter.
For instance when working on some storm drain pipes on the outside of the building PVC was not allowed, cast iron was required, (first 10') and in this particular project copper gutters were ran exposed and dumped into the cast iron spouts.
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.......................... Good Luck ...................
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Author:
packy
595 is about all a new dodge is worth TODAY...
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Author:
packy
my own home is from circa 1760.
some of the big beams in the cellar are round and flat on the top only. some of my floorboards are 25 inch wide pine.
i have a tunnell under my house that goes out to the ocean. smugglers used it for sugar and tea, when england taxed things like that. the tunnell has been filled in and cemented over but 3 granite steps still remain.
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Author:
waukeshaplumbing (WI)
a few 1890 farm houses...the plumbing is always 1930's or newer in those houses since they had no plumbing to start with.
i like the 1900's 4000sq feet houses near lake michigan...pipes wrapped in horse hair
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Author:
hj
One house had sawdust for insulation. It was packed tightly, so we could remove the lath and plaster from the lower section of the wall where the bathtub had to go, and it stayed in place, but when we bumped the wall, it all came pouring down.
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Author:
hj
Al Bundy would agree, but his rolled the speedometer around, and he couldn't get it to stop at 00000.
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Author:
hj
WE got some guys on the other side of the border who might be interested in buying your tunnel and moving it down here. It would save them having to dig their own.
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Author:
jimmy-o (CA)
sugar and tea my ass! Are you sure it wasn't for rum running during prohibition!!!
And also, up in my area there were tunnels which we were told related to the underground railroad during the slave era.
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Author:
sum (FL)
I wonder if they didn't fill the tunnel, and it runs a distance to the beach, when you bought the house would it automatically give you legal access rights to the underground space occupied by the tunnel, or only up till the property line?
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Author:
sum (FL)
What materials were older pipes made of?
Are they mostly cast iron?
I heard of this pressed together fiber pipe called orangeburg that is very old right?
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Author:
dlh (TX)
orangeburge was used in my area through the 50's. it is not older than cast iron i believe
----------------------------
PLUMBERS "Protecting The Health Of The Nation"
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Author:
LemonPlumber (FL)
Cool Packy .I have the area's old wood swing bridge lumbers under mine.Only a youngster at 1924!The bridge had a few years on it though.We get a bus full of people around once in a while.Nice to be in a historical neighborhood!I just do external.the inside is /was updated.Still like the pine floors.
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Good Luck. Insulate your hot piping, although costly, it will pay you back every day.
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Author:
hj
It depends on your definition of "old". It was used in the 50's and 60's and made a brief resurrection in the 70's for use in "low income" houses. The age of the house determine what materials COULD have been used, but since many materials were used concurrently, there were options. At that time, the drains could have been any combination of steel, wrought iron, cast iron, or lead. Water lines would have been lead, brass, or galvanized steel. Later periods introduced copper drains, and water lines as lead was phased out.
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Author:
hj
It was introduced as an "improvement" to cast iron, because, as the blurbs stated, "The tar on the pipes will repel roots and eliminate sewer stoppages due to root intrusion". The Cast Iron Institute had a field day with that statement. They produced movies showing the delamination of the "paper" which could fill the interior of the pipe, plus showing how roots grew through the pressed together connections.
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Author:
hj
Unless there are limitations, your property line extends from the center of the earth up to the top of the stratosphere, but you do not own anything outside of it.
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