The Story Behind Antique Bath Fixtures | Ask This Old House

[Music] well Oh Richard did you break into the plumbing Museum in the school it's a heist well I tell you my son Evan recently bought an 1833 sea captain's house in historic New Bedford Massachusetts once the whaling capital of the world so back then a very wealthy town that's right I guess if it's a sea captain's house that's gotta be one of the nicest houses in town so and back in 1833 not many people had that new thing that indoor plumbin didn't come till 1890 so it gives us a chance to sort of take a little historical peek so it started with the bathtub on this job and so I I want to show you the modern bathtub how the drain is handled this is called a bath waste and overflow this sits inside the tub water goes down the drain right here and there's always a way to activate a stopper so when we lift this down it will drop down to hold it in place or we go like this and the water goes down the drink right now what the by modern code they've added is this this is a very important thing called an overflow so imagine you fill in the tub and water comes here you forget to shut the water off is a place for the water to go in to keep it from overflowing so we've got a couple functions right the drain the stoppage the overflow right we've got our trap when it comes down but every fixture has to have a very important thing which is the trap in this case it's called a p-trap this has water that sits in it all the time because at this point we've got sewer gas we don't want to come up inside the building so this is modern day we're using a PVC and this is rest this is brass bronze okay all right but this is what they had back then well in this room this would have been this would have been high living I put a sea captain because this would have been a tub up on legs a clawfoot tub also called an Essex tub here's the the spout that goes into the tub the tub would have sat right here so now this would have been high living for this guy because you'd have hot and cold it would mix together and come out through a spout that's a far cry from having to take buckets of hot water out of the stove and bring it out from the kitchen yeah so now here's how the actuation for the drain went remember the trip level we head over here so look down inside here the water is going down the drain now we're going to lift this slightly and watch see how it stops it yes this is got a bi transit waste and it's got a thing called a bayonet catch that is great and this this would have beaten a stop so we have again we have drain underneath here we have a source do we have an overflow No so they learn that over time absolutely once you brought water down through three or four floors down to the basement all right so you remember the p-trap this is the trap that we found here this is actually called a drum trap not a pea trap like the modern trap and these are falling out of favor but they still did the basic function water would come down the drain right here it would fill this chamber right here and this will keep the sewer gas from coming this way because you had a slug of water up to this outflow pipe right but these these were actually built on-site and they weren't easy to keep running because if any hair or foreign matter get down it was settled down in here and now if you ran a snake down here like you can in the motor trap there's a good chance you're going to drive it right through the side of the lead and put a hole in it because you would never come up here and go into the into the drain and poke a hole in it because the lettuce sauce where that's why it's easy to work that's right and they were actually making these fittings as they needed them they would have taken sheet lead because lead is a pretty pliable material Superman has a look it has a low melting point only about five or six hundred degrees so any plumbing job in the olden days would have had a pot like this filled with molten lead there would have been a tank and then you would have taken this ladle fill with hot lead brought it over here and now you'd shape you'd be shaping this stuff and now you need it to pour this with a special wiping cloth and gloves and you shape this and sort of make it look like this there were all kinds of tools that would allow you to clean that up and shave it and then for fine-tuning there's always a torch like this right there was that leave a campbell going that turn it on it'd be a long lazy flame and they'd just finish it off to get that look you get right to amazing this house it didn't burn down more often and you can see the actual white marks I mean this thing is a work of art really was a work about look what else we found this should have been one of the first water pipes now we know lead is not the best material for carrying water but you can see why these things were written as a murder weapon siravo's that things like fire so they probably put a dowel into a form and poured hot lead and then pull the dowel out and then they try to do the same connection methods right here really thick really had over time we also found this in the building this is brass in that case they would cut it and they would thread it exactly where they needed it and that overtime give way to the modern copper and plastic wrap extra you know it all looks so skimpy by comparison compared to the old so I mean it still works and it's efficient but I mean guess that still here 150 to 200 years from now but I think yeah I think should be so that expression that you can never find a good plumber that doesn't apply to Evan well Ivan has my cell phone he can even get me on a Sunday I bet he can right well we appreciate the history lesson thank you [Music]

Channel: This Old House

Views: 84,851

Rating: 4.9434166 out of 5

Keywords: bath fixtures, Richard Trethewey, Kevin O'Connor, antique, piping, history, antique bath fixtures, This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, Kevin o’connor, kevin o'connor house, kevin o'connor this old house, kevin o'connor ask this old house, kevin o'connor interview

Id: brumHe2lmWg

Length: 4min 57sec (297 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 15 2017