Bathroom Renovations - Week 1

Sorry, I'm not very good at photos, you'll just have to bear with me.

So this week we had the bathroom rebuilding work starting properly, and the first thing that happened was that the bath, shower, toilet and sink all got ripped out. This is what is left...

On the same day, the plumber came in to install new fittings. Now the rule is, if you replace a bath with a shower (e.g.) that's fine. But new fittings require building consent. An analysis of the rules suggests that it's to do with creating new waste pipes. So the plumber had told us he'd "connect into existing waste pipes". All good, no new waste pipes, so no building consent required. The building consent (cost about $800) is a pain in the arse by the way, requiring isometric drawings of drainage and checks at three stages through the process, plus requiring you to install double glazing on new windows and smoke alarms throughout the house - needless to say we didn't want to do it. Anyway. The plumber came in and what we found is that he hadn't connected into the existing waste pipes at all, he'd made two new drainage connections by cutting holes in the weatherboards!

I was not amused, particularly about the pipe slung under the joists as long term we want to convert the basement and this arrangement means we can't install a ceiling there because there's a pipe in the way! The plumber is apparently not amused with us, either, but that's just tough. Our house is a dream to plumb with full head height basement, easy money for a plumber and they've taken the easy option as far as I can see, as connecting into existing waste pipes is obviously a bit more tricky, but we intend to get this fixed, so watch this space.

Anyway we obviously have no bathroom while all of this is going on. We do have a toilet, in the basement. To use it you have to go outside, down the stairs, unlock the basement, use a headtorch to get to it. Steve found a guest in there earlier....

This is a weta, a native NZ species. We were quite excited to find him in there.