laundry room freakout! can anyone help?

16 years ago

we're DAYS from an occupancy certificate. Only a cosmetic punchlist left and a few final plumbing fixtures, one of which is the utility sink in our second floor laundry room which will be dropped into a laminate counter top which sits on a sink base cabinet. We just went to install the counter top tonight so the plumber can install the final sink/faucet in there tomorrow (final plumbing day) and we ran into a world of hurt. 3 major problems.

1) the electrical box for the dryer plug is 6+ inches HIGHER than the top of the dryer and the plug doesn't reach. that box just got installed today. it's a fisher paykel dryer--could it be that it's an abnormally short cord? does anyone else have dryer plugs more than half way up the wall?

2) we went with a pan/wall drain for accidents with the washer and it appears they did no measuring and just randomly picked a spot on the wall for that drain. the plumber today took the pan and drilled a hole in the side and put this flimsy plastic piece with no sealant or anything--cracked the top of the pan and there's nothing that fits that tube sticking out of the wall on the washer, but the REAL problem is--he drilled the hole dead center in the pan and if you put the washer in the pan, it doesn't leave room for the dryer when you consider the dryer vent. you'd have to smash the dryer up against the wall to fit the washer in and then you can't vent the dryer.

3) we can't find a discharge drain for the washer and are assuming he might be using the same drain as the utility sink, except it would have been nice to know that because he's going to have to drill through the side of our cabinet if that's what they intend to do.

4) assuming all that works out and we slide everything down to accomodate the dryer vent and re-arrange the pan, then the plumbing for the utility sink will no longer fit inside the cabinet.

ok, so that's 4 major problems--i lied.

is this really as big a disaster as it seems right now? anyone with advice? i just called and left my builder a message and am DREADING the tantrum i'm about to throw on him for just being a dope in general.

someone please calm me down.

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Comments (5)

totallyblessed
16 years ago
maggiepie,

I don't have any advice (wish I did.... but I'll leave it to the many experts and smarties on here!). Just wanted to say I'm sorry that you discovered all of these crazy little problems, and I hope that there are some simple solutions when you speak with your builder in the morning. Let us know how he plans to "fix" everything. He must have a way.... that's why he gets paid the big bucks, right?! ;O) Good luck tomorrow!
ajpl
16 years ago
Ugh, I hope there are simple solutions to these issue. I do know that the only house I lived in with a higher electrical box was about 3 inches above the back fo the dryer and I had a Kenmore and it just barely fit. It doesn't sound like an issue with a short cord but more like a poorly placed receptacle to me.
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Tanem makes a good point on the laundry chute and evaluating how you do laundry. I should have expanded my thinking too as my second floor is for a daughter and grandson, my daughter has gone back to school. So that laundry is for her. When she moves out and that floor is mostly for guests, they can use it when needed. My son will have the basement level, and I was going to put one down there, but decided he can bring his laundry up to the main laundry room. Our master, and everything for our old age is on the main floor so that made that laundry room decision an easy one. When my daughters were both home, and doing lots of laundry, they did their own, so a 2nd floor laundry would have been very handy for them. Especially when they put it in and forget about it. Every time I would want to use the washer or dryer, seems like there was always something already in it. We are still building but I am getting a rack for my front loads so it makes them stackable so the w/d upstairs is a full size, so even if a person only used it for bedding etc, it can handle it. Our old house, laundry was in the basement of a 2 story, with no chute. I would tend to take it all down there in hampers (3 stories) so I was the chute, and I still hated going down there to do laundry. So my new laundry is going to be close to the kitchen also, so I am going to love that. I thought about a w/d closet in the master or close but we come in dirty alot and strip down etc so wanted to keep the laundry over by the mudroom, which is close to the kitchen, so I think it is all going to work out great. I will say though, that we are renting a 1965 ranch, with a laundry closet in the bathroom, with another huge closet for dirty clothes.... now that is handy. There is only one tub/shower in the house, so everyone's dirty clothes are right there. It is a pretty nice set up actually.
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sierraeast
16 years ago
If the wiring to the dryer comes up from the floor,(if you have a crawl space or basement), not too big a deal to drop it down,(minor drywall patching).

As far as the rest, i would get the advise from a plumber other than the one your builder used.I would pass on the consultation fee of your found plumber to the builder.This mess is solely the responsibility of your builder and the appearant lack of experience of the builders plumber.
maggiepie11
Original Author
16 years ago
thanks for the reassurance!

i met our GC at the site this morning. he agreed there were a lot of stupid mistakes all piled up to make for a stressful night.

he's normally a basketcase but remained completely calm and composed which i SO needed this time. all the problems are fixable. he's moving the dryer vent to be closer to the corner and is going to notch some of the wall to steal space there for half the vent and then patch the wall around it like a chase. then, he's replacing the pan and drilling the hole OFF center so we dont' need to move the washer to accomodate the plumbing. when we stood there and said--ah, one more major problem--we don't see a discharge drain, his eyes bugged out of his head and he freaked and yelled out the plumber's name (who was downstairs at the time) and he came running up and showed us it was hidden in this utility box where the supply valves and auto-emergency shutoff valves are, so we're good there.

all in all--it'll be fixed to our satisfaction and any delays or overages aren't our problem. :)

once we got it all squared away, our builder giggled and said --geez from the tone of your voicemail last night i figured it was a LOT worse than this!

this forum keeps me sane. thanks for letting me vent in a relevant space! (no pun on the vent) hehe
totallyblessed
16 years ago
maggiepie,

So glad everything worked out to your satisfaction. Glad your builder was so amicable. Yah! :o)

laundry room freakout! can anyone help?

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