1968 Travel Queen Resto Mod - 12. Waste Water
Part 12. Waste Water is pretty much self-explanatory. Is it black? Is it grey? And how is it done in this vintage resto-mod so that advantage is gained in such a limited space? These are issues both p...
Forum Discussion
With too much going on this week for real camper work, I'm posting some recent-past photos that were saved out because they didn't really make up a full post. But as sources dry up, they become a little more "post worthy". (I sound like a politician with the word "post" used so many times in one paragraph).
I mentioned I'd be using copper pipe in the camper. Not throughout, but in particular ways. Remember back in the day when copper tubing - mostly 3.8" I think - was used? Both for water and gas?
And then came drugs and people were stripping out copper from homes and campers and selling it on the salvage market so they could buy more allergy medicine to make meth and stuff. Okay, well maybe I got part of my back-story wrong, but you don't find copper water pipe in campers anymore.
Copper was replaced with plastic. Imagine that, plastic being used as a natural resource! But because of my public skool edukation, I happen to know what plastic is made out of - consumers! Don't use plastic! It's made out of people! Wait. That doesn't sound right either. Let me do some more checking and I'll get back with you on that - for sure.
But there have been at least a few common water pipe materials since copper. I think Pex is probably a popular contender right now. Pex clamps, worm-gear clamps, threaded fittings and cemented. enough to keep the DIY RV owner in several styles of required tools.
My folks helped build their new home in 1961 (just sold last summer). One neat feature that we kids loved growing up, and every grand-kid and great grand-kid mom and dad had over all those years included, was the 3" copper drain pipe at the foot of the stairs! Can you believe it? 3" copper? As drain pipe?
We'd run down the stairs, grab onto that pipe toward the top on our downwind leg, and swing around it to navigate the 90 degree base leg, turning onto final at the bottom, feet flailing wildly in the wind until coming back into contact with the ground just before face planting the wall - if you hadn't cut back the throttle far enough. That pipe never oxidized. Loving child hands polished that pipe to looking glass smooth for over 50 years!
I still remember how my forehead used to look before we installed the suspended ceiling and I grew taller as a young teenager. Puberty changes all sorts of things, not the least of which is foreheads on a boy.
And I could sit here and talk more about the copper pipe plans for our fresh water system, but that would be illegal, so I can only discuss the drain pipe in this thread. At least for today.
Somewhere along the line I mentioned the fridge cabinet, and my desire to keep it convertible for future potential increased fridge size. If so, it would take up too much height for drain lines to live there. For that reason I needed different routing for the drain run from the kitchen sink. I found a suitable cavity; between the range and the fridge cabinet.
But, by doing so, the drain line exits the face of that cabinet at the lower bottom corner of the range, and in broad view of everybody, turns the corner before it disappears again in the fresh water cabinet. How to make it pretty? I considered PVC, or maybe CPVC in cream if they make such a size in CPVC (but I don't think they do). However, I didn't have the width in the cut-out for PVC. Barely enough space for the much smaller diameter 1.5" copper. (I didn't want to cut into the chrome face flange of the range.)
But a run over to the home center revealed very high prices for copper pipe and fittings! As you might expect, the drug trade being what it is these days and all.
I couldn't justify buying a whole stick of 10' pipe for the small pieces I needed. I could justify the fittings prices, but just barely.
So I called a plumbing shop and asked if they had any scrap pieces. One fine shop I found here locally gave me the one foot piece I needed. It was salvaged drain pipe from a home like my folks'.
I cut it into two 6" lengths and had enough left over to make a ring of power.
Together with my purchased street elbows and a coupler I had this.
Here's the general idea.
Here's the galley cabinet face pulled back from the fridge cabinet for test placement.
Two things I've noticed from the test fit. First I need to cut back the length of the pipe entering the fresh water cabinet. It will need to rotate upward into horizontal, so in the cabinet face below it there will need to be kind of an elongated hole to allow the swing. The swing length (and hole size) can be minimized by cutting the length back as far as possible. And I can't remember what the second thing was.
At each end I'll connect to the under cabinet PVC with a no-hub coupling (also referred to as a Fernco coupling). Those are a rubber cylindrical sleeve that has a worm gear clamp at both ends for fastening to the pipe. The pipe slips inside the coupling and the clamps on rubber make the seal.
My range clearance says I need only 3/8" combustibles clearance, which I have and more, but I think I may install a small sheet metal shield over the one along the stove, just for added security.
The only thing I'm having trouble with is how to increase the pipe length between elbows to provide the grand-kids enough "swing time".
I mentioned I'd be using copper pipe in the camper. Not throughout, but in particular ways. Remember back in the day when copper tubing - mostly 3.8" I think - was used? Both for water and gas?
And then came drugs and people were stripping out copper from homes and campers and selling it on the salvage market so they could buy more allergy medicine to make meth and stuff. Okay, well maybe I got part of my back-story wrong, but you don't find copper water pipe in campers anymore.
Copper was replaced with plastic. Imagine that, plastic being used as a natural resource! But because of my public skool edukation, I happen to know what plastic is made out of - consumers! Don't use plastic! It's made out of people! Wait. That doesn't sound right either. Let me do some more checking and I'll get back with you on that - for sure.
But there have been at least a few common water pipe materials since copper. I think Pex is probably a popular contender right now. Pex clamps, worm-gear clamps, threaded fittings and cemented. enough to keep the DIY RV owner in several styles of required tools.
My folks helped build their new home in 1961 (just sold last summer). One neat feature that we kids loved growing up, and every grand-kid and great grand-kid mom and dad had over all those years included, was the 3" copper drain pipe at the foot of the stairs! Can you believe it? 3" copper? As drain pipe?
We'd run down the stairs, grab onto that pipe toward the top on our downwind leg, and swing around it to navigate the 90 degree base leg, turning onto final at the bottom, feet flailing wildly in the wind until coming back into contact with the ground just before face planting the wall - if you hadn't cut back the throttle far enough. That pipe never oxidized. Loving child hands polished that pipe to looking glass smooth for over 50 years!
I still remember how my forehead used to look before we installed the suspended ceiling and I grew taller as a young teenager. Puberty changes all sorts of things, not the least of which is foreheads on a boy.
And I could sit here and talk more about the copper pipe plans for our fresh water system, but that would be illegal, so I can only discuss the drain pipe in this thread. At least for today.
Somewhere along the line I mentioned the fridge cabinet, and my desire to keep it convertible for future potential increased fridge size. If so, it would take up too much height for drain lines to live there. For that reason I needed different routing for the drain run from the kitchen sink. I found a suitable cavity; between the range and the fridge cabinet.
But, by doing so, the drain line exits the face of that cabinet at the lower bottom corner of the range, and in broad view of everybody, turns the corner before it disappears again in the fresh water cabinet. How to make it pretty? I considered PVC, or maybe CPVC in cream if they make such a size in CPVC (but I don't think they do). However, I didn't have the width in the cut-out for PVC. Barely enough space for the much smaller diameter 1.5" copper. (I didn't want to cut into the chrome face flange of the range.)
But a run over to the home center revealed very high prices for copper pipe and fittings! As you might expect, the drug trade being what it is these days and all.
I couldn't justify buying a whole stick of 10' pipe for the small pieces I needed. I could justify the fittings prices, but just barely.
So I called a plumbing shop and asked if they had any scrap pieces. One fine shop I found here locally gave me the one foot piece I needed. It was salvaged drain pipe from a home like my folks'.
I cut it into two 6" lengths and had enough left over to make a ring of power.
Together with my purchased street elbows and a coupler I had this.
Here's the general idea.
Here's the galley cabinet face pulled back from the fridge cabinet for test placement.
Two things I've noticed from the test fit. First I need to cut back the length of the pipe entering the fresh water cabinet. It will need to rotate upward into horizontal, so in the cabinet face below it there will need to be kind of an elongated hole to allow the swing. The swing length (and hole size) can be minimized by cutting the length back as far as possible. And I can't remember what the second thing was.
At each end I'll connect to the under cabinet PVC with a no-hub coupling (also referred to as a Fernco coupling). Those are a rubber cylindrical sleeve that has a worm gear clamp at both ends for fastening to the pipe. The pipe slips inside the coupling and the clamps on rubber make the seal.
My range clearance says I need only 3/8" combustibles clearance, which I have and more, but I think I may install a small sheet metal shield over the one along the stove, just for added security.
The only thing I'm having trouble with is how to increase the pipe length between elbows to provide the grand-kids enough "swing time".
