How to get a 400 pound tub out of a small bathroom

It's hard to believe how close we are to "done."

There are a few reasons that word is in quotations. The biggest is that, well, I really don't think it's possible to be done. Underline, italics, bold, period, whatever, I feel fairly confident that done is an unattainable goal in any home.

Our version of "done" however, is not even done for us - it's done upstairs, with perhaps some small tweaks and mostly done downstairs. After all, even all done for us would lead to a bored Katie and then what would y'all read about every Thursday?

Last week, we talked about making a gaping hole between two rooms while trying to just move a wall out a tiiiny bit to make my upstairs bathroom a tiiiny bit bigger. Then the wall had to go back up so that we had someplace to put the fun stuff like plumbing and electrical where, naturally, we encountered a few surprises.

Let's talk plumbing:

First off, you need permits. Don't be one of those people who learns after the fact that they paid a few thousand dollars for shoddy work that has to be redone. Then you'll be one of those people who has to pay for work to be done twice when then city finds out - and you'll probably have a nice fine too. You should only pull the permit if you're personally doing the work - otherwise, your licensed plumber/electrician/HVAC person/contractor should.

To pull your permits, you need at least a pretty good idea of what you're doing. In our case, I'd planned and replanned and replanned and replanned the layout.

Don't most people's living rooms look like this? Spoiler alert: this was one of the failed plans.

Despite originally thinking that we were going to put in a walk in shower, the associated costs just got too high. All of the fixtures (toilet, sink [or lavatory in plumber speak - lav for short], and tub) were going to stay where they were. In many cases, it's cheaper to move plumbing four feet than four inches but it's almost always cheapest to keep it where it is.

To start the plumbing once the permits were pulled, we had to get everything out and I do mean everything.

Out went the pony wall, plastic floor tile, medicine cabinet plaster, vanity, everything:

And then there was the 400 pound tub.

Let me preface this with a disclaimer: this tub was not original to Isthmus House or even close. Even so, I would have preferred to salvage it for another house but couldn't for several reasons I'm not going to get into here.

The only way to get a cast iron tub out: smash it.

Here are some step by step instructions:
1. Put on long sleeves and pants (not shorts), gloves, eye protection, a mask and hearing protection. Do not skip any of these items. Trust me on this.
2. Disconnect the drain and the water supplies.
3. Pick up a sledge hammer. The Roommate and I are both pretty strong women so we used a ten pound sledge hammer. Using a pendulum motion (i.e. let gravity help you), hit the edges of the tub in as small an area as possible until you see a crack. A lot of men can crack a tub in a few swings with a bigger sledge hammer but we were more comfortable with it taking 6-10 swings before things really started moving.
4. Break the tub into movable pieces. There will be shards of the glaze flying - it's why you're wearing protective gear. I've heard of people using wet blankets inside the tub to dull that effect when they do this.
5. Clean up the little pieces as much as possible - if you use contractor bags, you'll only be able to fill them a little before they get really heavy. Double them up at a minimum - the shards are sharp as glass and can go through one layer pretty easily. Gorilla bags may work better for this but we didn't have any. I also used a filter that was close to trash-ready in my shop-vac to remove the dust and tiny pieces the broom didn't catch.
6. Take the big pieces to your local metal scrap yard. Our tub was worth about $45 in scrap - that's two boxes of basic subway tile!

Finally, the room was completely clear and we were ready for plumbing!

In went new water lines and a new, bigger drain for the tub and sink. Naturally, it couldn't be easy and we ended up needing to replace a lot of the drain line to meet code.

No matter how you cut it, this bathroom is coming along. Now what do we do with all of those holes in the floor?!