A Tale of A Tub

 The bathroom renovation (which is still basically demo at this point) has been progressing nicely.  It is not as fast as I would like--projects never are.  There are a number of factors that play into that. My construction guru friend has out of state jobs periodically and is unavailable to coach me.  But mostly the slow down is that I have tried to keep the bathroom functional as long as possible and I can only work on weekends as a general rule.  

By this weekend I had progressed to the area that gave me the most concern of all.  The Great Removal of the Tub.  As per usual I spent loads of time watching youtube vids on the best ways to remove a cast iron tub.  I should also note for the record that I am in my sixth decade and weigh about 130 pounds.  Also the bathroom area is very tight to work in.

I saw a cool method using an angle grinder but don't have one.  My friend E had a saw that he fitted with a blade for metal.  I gave that a try on Saturday.  It took quite a while for it to cut through the cast iron and it could only go down so far. It could not cut across the floor.   After many hours of do that I decided to move onto plan B which involved using a sledge hammer. (also borrowed from construction guru friend)  

However it was later in the day and clearly I did not think this through.  My idea was to bash the tub in the area where I had made the cut.  In my mind I thought that this would then eventually cause the tub to fracture sort of on the line of the cut I had made.  It did not work like that.  After 30 minutes of bashing with a gigantic sledge hammer I had, as my oldest son so kindly put it (a very small hole for all that work) Thankfully I refrained from bashing HIM and called it a day. LOL

That night while lying it bed it occured to me that I was approaching this bashing thing wrong.  I needed to bash the BOTTOM of the tub as near as possible to where the side cuts had been made. I got up early, had a quick breakfast and 20 minutes later:

I wound up bashing it into three sections.  One I could carry out myself.  One my wife helped with, and the last and largest one I carried out with Chet. Kirsty has a bad back and I was very worried she would injure herself. 

This is the area that used to have a tub!  Notice there are two doors on the back wall. They don't go anywhere these days but long ago they went to a shed and to a barn where the "three holer" was.  I am now in the process of removing the green board and getting down to the studs.  When my friend is free he will show me how to remove the doors and seal the space more effectively with insulation.  But it has been a good weekends work and i am proud of the progress.  Also, I found the bathroom floor under the tub to be in excellent condition so that is a plus as well!