Oops.

When starting a big project, I never assume it's going to be as easy as it looks. I also never like to hear "oops" at any time during said big project. *sigh*

Today was a good day, right up until I thought I was finished. That's when it got a little tricky. For what it's worth, a girl like me can pick up a cast iron tub and lug it around. I learned that tubs are actually nailed to the wall, so I pulled each and every one of those nails out. Then I learned that tubs won't move while still puttied to the floor, so I broke the caulking seal. Then I unscrewed the drain couplings underneath the tub and set to work on figuring out how to pull out the tub.

Before long, I realized that I also needed to remove the drain inside the tub in order to detach that part of the tub. Apparently, unscrewing the two pipes (drain pipe and overflow pipe) wasn't enough, and I also had to remove the drain in order to release the tub from the piping below. No problem. I'll get a wrench and fix that. Or not. I stuck a long nose pair of vise grips down the drain to grip the cross pieces in the drain. Oops. Yeah, those were corroded. Wanna guess what they did? Disintegrated. That's right, they ceased to exist. Hmm. So then I used my crowbar, chiseled into the enamel and bent up the edges so I could grip them and remove it that way. No luck. So I sat and thought, and sat and thought some more, and finally decided to see if I could wiggle the pipe out by lifting the tub.

I pushed the tub a bit and was surprised at how easily it moved! I pulled it a bit and voila! The whole thing was free! So I turned it on its side, hefted it up and moved it out to the back patio. That wasn't so bad! In fact, that was amazingly easy. I had called a friend who agreed to come over and assist me with the rip out. He was also going to see if he could bring along his two (young adult) sons to help. Turns out, I had the tub out before they arrived, so I called and let him know of my success. Then I went back to the bathroom to clean up a bit before starting to reinstall new fixtures.

That's when I noticed something wasn't quite right. Turns out that the pipe wasn't up to the task of me taking out the tub. Don't get me wrong, everything up top looked normal. All the plastic drain work was fine...P-trap, drain and everything was just hunky dory. Want to know what broke in two? The cast iron pipe right where it enters the foundation. Doh! Thankfully, I can quickly recognize when I'm out of my league. This is one of those times. I called a professional. Actually, I called two, because the first guy I talked to sounded scared. I decided that maybe this was a big job for a really big company, not just your local plumber dude.

I think this is going to involve tearing up part of our foundation and replacing original cast iron piping. Or worse...the whole thing. I think this is bigger than our economic stimulus check. All because I could no longer tighten a valve tight enough to turn off the water. Such is life.