4-Plumbing and Electrical: by us!

The long, hot summer arrived, and with our last round of helpful friends heading off to begin their next chapter in life, we turned our attention to electrical and plumbing. We decided to divide and conquer—Mark took on the electrical, and I took on the plumbing.

Mark had some experience from home renovations—replacing outlets and such—but had never designed and installed an entire electrical system for a new build. He said he often felt like a substitute teacher, trying to stay just one chapter ahead of the class. Armed with a “how to build a house” book (yes, pre-internet), his evenings were spent figuring out the next steps. Looking back, he’s pretty sure he used twice the amount of wire a professional would have, simply because efficiency wasn’t yet in his skill set. Thankfully, copper wasn’t outrageously expensive at the time. He also had the gift of a kind electrical inspector—someone who wanted him to succeed, not shame him—and that made all the difference.

My plumbing education mainly came in the form of free leaflets and asking a million questions at Home Depot. I learned about pipe grades, sizing for fixtures, designing the layout, and how to glue everything together. I was learning on the spot, and was thankful that there are such things as building inspectors to check the work and to be sure I was doing it right. But, as you might imagine, in the 90s, a woman choosing to do her own rough plumbing without formal training was a bit of an anomaly.  Again, what was that saying I was raised with?  “You can’t mess anything up so bad you can’t hire a professional to fix it.”

At one point, an inspector came out and insisted I redo the entire system—claiming the printed words on the pipes needed to be lined up. Now, I may not have been an expert, but I was quite sure that lining up words had no effect on water flow. Hmmmm.  He had made other suggestions that I honored, but redoing the whole thing to line up words felt a bit passive aggressive.  I made the other suggested changes, and when the next inspector came through… I passed.  Quite a relief and cause for celebration.

Even in the midst of construction, I couldn’t resist planting my first vegetable garden. In the next photo I am proudly showing it off in the very spot where Mark’s grape vineyard now grows. That first garden taught us a lot about our water situation. We had two wells on the property—one was dry, and the other produced less than a gallon a minute. For perspective, a typical garden hose uses about five gallons a minute, and building requirements call for fifteen.

So, we installed a large holding tank to collect the slow, steady “drip” from the well, allowing us to manage daily needs like flushing toilets. Watering the garden, however, became an ongoing conversation between Mark and me—how much water could we really afford to use? Ironically, years later, when Mark decided to plant his vineyard, water usage didn’t seem to be quite the same concern. Perhaps that had something to do with his love of wine and his general indifference toward vegetables.

I do love this photo—standing proudly with my garden, the house behind me partially wrapped and waiting for siding… and so many other things.