Rodent invasion aftermath
**Warning**, *This post is a bit of a ramble, but my hope is that it
provides some measure of assistance (and perhaps entertainment) to
the many homeowners who invariably suffer from similar issues. That
said, on to the blabber.*
As I had mentioned in previous posts, we have been the victims of a
rat invasion. After determining that said rodents were coming into
the house through the drain pipe void under the kitchen sink and
subsequently making their way into the house from underneath the
dishwasher, the time came to take some action. After removing the
cabinet doors, I found that the cabinet bottom under the sink
already had water damage from previous leaks, so I ripped out the
old particle board cabinet floor all the way to the adjoining wall,
which was fairly easy as it was simply crumbling in my hand. I was
greeted by sea of rat droppings as well as trash where they had
obviously been nesting. While I was opening up the cabinet floor, I
thought I heard some movement where the residents were probably
retreating back down the plumbing void to avoid the ruckus. I
immediately stuffed some steel wool into the drain pipe void to at
least prevent them from coming back in through that path. Clearing
out all of the droppings and trash was a formidable, but not
insurmountable task (I'll spare the reader any pics of the mess) and
once that was accomplished, it was on to the next step.
The previous 1/4" particle board cabinet base had little if any
support and what little support was there had disintegrated ages
ago. The subfloor underneath appeared to be in okay shape with the
previous layment of linoleum providing a little more protection from
water. I could see some warping of the particle board subfloor
around where the drainpipe stack penetrates the subfloor. Sure
enough, I found a joint in the drain stack leaking. I then drove 20
minutes to the closest hardware store with the intention of
purchasing a new section of pipe and going through the rigors of yet
another task. I had snapped a picture on my phone to show to the
hardware guy so I could get the correct piece. He looked at the pic
and said, "There is a difficult and expensive way to do this or you
can go the easy and cheap way." Hmm...Easy and cheap is good, so I
opted for the latter. He handed me a roll of "Rescue Tape" and I
was out the door in 5 minutes. The tape is simply a very flexible
silicone tape you wrap tightly around the pipe section that is
leaking and you're done. Simple, effective and cheap (red arrow in
the pic above). Not exactly an elegant repair, but it will do the
job since there is little if any water pressure in a drain pipe.
Since it is not likely I will be parking a car in there, I decided
to replace the cabinet base with 1/4" plywood as the top of the
toekick had a 1/4" lip where the previous base (also 1/4" particle
board) had been stapled in...yes that's right, stapled. To
complicate matters further, the top of the toekick measured out to 4
5/8" above the subfloor below. Too high for 2x4 support and too low
for 2x6 (ripping pieces was not an option...long story.) The
cabinet sides were too flimsy to provide any meaningful support. I
decided to go with 2x2's to provide support from the subfloor below.
Lengths were cut ~ 1 inch short of the overall depth and then these
lengths rest on 2x2 "legs" that were toenailed (or in this case toe
screwed) into the horizontal lengths thus elevating the horizontal
pieces to the correct height. This is simply for support as any
lateral movement will be prevented by the plywood being fastened to
the lip on the toekick.
Fortunately, a friend had an extra sheet of 4x8 1/4" plywood that
would serve quite nicely. Fitting a sheet of plywood this size in
the Prius was out of the question, so I decided to cut off only what
I needed. After snapping a chalk line across the sheet, I began the
cut. I quickly discovered that cutting a flimsy sheet of plywood
with a Japanese pull saw is not an easy task. It took several
minutes of panting and sweating, but the cut was made and the
exercise probably did me some good.
In my typical fashion of overdoing things, I decided I would replace
the old polybutylene fittings (at least under the kitchen sink) with
pex and sharkbite fittings to reduce the risk of any future leaks in
the supply lines.
[Polybutylene](
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybutylene#Environmental_longevity)
has a checkered history, but that is for another rant. Suffice it
to say Shell Oil was tarred and feathered in the court room. I
think the main reason we have been spared from any major leaks is
that we are on a well for our water supply, consequently the pipes
have not been exposed to chlorinated water as chlorine and
chloramine are the main culprits of causing polybutylene
deterioration and subsequent failure. After replacing the fittings
in the bathrooms some time ago, I could not find any evidence of
deterioration and these pipes are 30 years old. For now, it appears
we have been spared, but I remain paranoid.
Despite taking careful measurements, I still ended up with some
small gaps between the plywood sections. Either my work piece was
not quite square or the cabinet sections were not quite square
(probably the latter.) My plan is to cover the section under the
sink with some flooring material to provide a bit more water
protection. Okay, getting a little closer to the finish line. New
supply lines and plywood is in:
Next section is waiting:
As the supports were being fabricated for the next section, the
screw I was driving into the support bent (probably hit a knot) and
the star driver stripped out. \*Sigh* 2" finishing nails to the
rescue (probably should have used nails to start with) :-/ You can't
have enough clamps and a deck rail makes a nice work bench...
Toe nailing with real nails seemed to go much faster, so the
remaining supports were finished in the same manner. I guess
fasteners have a place, but in a situation like this, I prefer
nails.
Finished!!
The vertical cabinet supports forced me to cut the plywood into
smaller sections to get them through the openings, but somehow it
all worked out. I'm sure there are probably better ways to
accomplish this project, but this is what came to my mind. The only
power tool used was a power drill for the fasteners. I probably
would have been better off with nails and a crank drill for the
pilot holes. Anyway, next time.
--- The images are in webp format which should be viewable on most
modern browsers. This compression format is impressive to say the
least. For example, the original size of the above pic was 576K,
after resizing and compressing with cwebp, the final size was 16K.
The tradeoff is that more cpu power is required to not only
compress, but to display the image in the browser. The following
pic is without resizing, but with ordered dithering with gray
colorspace. The file size came in at a trim 47K, but at full size,
it is significantly sharper than the other images with ordered
dithering:
Stay tuned...
Tags: hand-tools, computing, imaging
