Old Home Remodel Los Angeles

5 years ago

Hello All,

I’ve been fortunate enough to live in the same home my whole life. I believe my home was built in the 60’s I found old newspaper stuffed in the walls when I tore them out. It’s a 3bdr 1 bath home with a large den that was added in the 80’s. Yes I’m sure the 80’s since there is a huge jacuzzi in the upper level of the den. This unexpected remodel started off as just wanting to relocate the washer and dryer outside. Doing so would then open up our tiny kitchen which would make my mother happy and myself. After years of many water leaks with the washer, I noticed the floor giving out then eventually a hole. My father and I then replaced all the old damage baseboards, I then noticed damage had traveled under the old cabinets. I didn’t want to do horrible patch jobs like the repairmen before so I made plans to rip out all the cabinets and flooring to start from the bottom up. I then noticed that there was about 10 layers of old tile and adhesive. All of it will eventually be removed as I’m working in sections. This gave me the idea to relocated and replace our old giant water heater that just took up too much space. We will be upgrading to a tankless water heater, any recommendations are welcomed. So far I have knocked down the 3 walls that separated our kitchen from dining room and access to backyard (small laundry room) . Thank god I decided to do so, the wall with the water heater had mold and water damage all inside so the drywall/ cement board just broke away without much effort on my end. I keep telling myself this is for the better, I’ll eventually be finished. Now I’m just trying to decide which tankless water heater we will go with, then reroute the water pipes and gas line. I am leaning towards the PEX system, we shouldn’t have any issues living in Los Angeles. Any advice, ideas, recommendations are always welcomed. I will be adding photos as soon as I locate the all.

Many thanks

Featured Answer

lynne3450

5 years ago

We’re in LA too and repiped our 1940 house 11 years ago with pex and a tankless water heater. Do it!! No regrets!

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Comments (8)

User
5 years ago
would love to see your progress! careful ripping out the floor -- if there's old lineoleum, it might have asbestos.
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Dennis Thornton
5 years ago
We remodeled and installed a Navien tankless about 7 years ago. It has worked flawlessly and we have endless hot water. Some things you should be aware of -

Tankless has no tank. So when you turn on the faucet it has to heat up the heat exchanger before it will heat water. This means it takes longer to get hot water. Our Navien has a small built in tank to overcome this.

Tankless require more gas flow to heat than a tank type. This is because it is heating the water as it is used, not slowly. Your local codes probably will require a larger gas line to compensate, so take that into account.

Sizing is important. If you have 3 showers, a dishwasher, and a clothes washer all going at once you will be using a lot of hot water. Determine the max gallon flow you'll be using and pick a tankless that is large enough to cover it. It the tankless isn't large enough you'll get warm water instead of hot. If you were in a harsh winter area the incoming temp of the water would be another factor. As you're in LA that isn't much of a concern.

High efficiency tankless can often be exhausted using PVC pipe (follow the mfgr's install instructions) so that can be a cost savings. Our install used PVC for intake and exhaust, giving us more flexibility in where it was mounted.

Last, resist the bigger is better impulse when running lines from the tankless to faucet. The smaller the pipe the quicker you'll get hot water when you turn on a tap. Hot water into a pipe that is full of cold water tales time to flush. 1/2" will take less time than 3/4". Pipe size selection should be the minimum size to cover the needed volume flow. 1/2" will flow about 14 GPM - more than enough for the 3 showers, dishwasher, and clothes washer I mentioned above.
rureadyinla
5 years ago
We repiped our house 6 years ago and went with Pex with no issues thus far. We have 2.5 bathrooms. We also switched from tank to tankless water heater at same time as we had a tankless in our old house and loved it. We moved ours from underneath our house to outside.
toxcrusadr
5 years ago
Second the warning about asbestos flooring. If there are that many layers in a house that old, at least one is going to have it. Plus backing paper and even adhesive can be ACM.
Gargamel
5 years ago
I hope you confirmed that the walls knocked down were not load bearing walls
Korey
Original Author
4 years ago
Thank you everyone for your responses! Very much appreciated as I've opened a can of worms 😂 so my thoughts are, i don't believe it to be a load bearing wall since it's in between the back door and dining room. It's a small wall about 6ft. With taking down the wall there is a lot of mold so good that it's leaving anyway. And i noticed termites eating away and some of the wood holding the drywall.
Korey
Original Author
4 years ago
Hello, I've been having trouble with this app and uploading comments and photos. Hope it works this time as i keep having to rewrite this comment. This is before demo, it's a very small laundry room. I don't think appliances were as big before but the room is still just so small. You can see the water damage from the drainage from washer.