Log #35 Day 38 April 1, 2026 Bath & Plumbing

We Dug Up Our Own Work: Insulating the Buried Pipes

원문: 한옥 셀프 리모델링 기록 #35 (단열보드 부착 · 화장실 상수도 배관 보온 및 매설 · 수평몰탈 전 예비 미장 · 폐기물 반출)

Days thirty-eight and thirty-nine (the day between went to the hanok subsidy inspection visit). This entry is mostly about swallowing pride and re-doing our own work.

The excavation of ourselves. The Acorn (PB) supply pipes we’d proudly buried in the bathroom floor came back out today. The correction: bare PB pipe under fill is exposed to punctures from sharp stones and stress from its own expansion cycles — a slow leak engineered in advance. So: dig up, sleeve every run in foam insulation, re-bury. Awkward curves that refused a sleeve got urethane foam sprayed over them instead — protection and freeze-proofing in one pass. The reburial sequence: excavated soil and stones first, dry mortar powder poured over to lock the gaps, then compacted level by boot.

The tip we’ll give anyone starting: pre-insulated PB pipe exists. Buy that.

The outsourcing debate. Boarding the bath and corridor walls (the daily background task), a real conversation happened: should precision work like this be outsourced next time? A crew would cost about ₩2 million extra — arguably worth it for focus and finish quality. But there’s a catch we noted for the future: pros typically batten the walls flat before boarding, which costs the 1–2 cm of room depth we’ve been winning back wall by wall. Time versus space — measure both before deciding.

Annex bathroom ceiling. The layered old ceiling — skin, plywood, styrofoam, in that order — came down entirely, clearing the way for the dome ceiling planned there and reclaiming height.

And the inspection. For the subsidy assessor’s visit, the site got its most thorough cleaning in a month: waste sorted for Friday pickup, courtyard and floors de-dusted. A construction site’s version of dressing up.

What we'd tell you

Buy pre-insulated PB pipe from the start — retrofitting sleeves onto buried pipe means excavating your own work. Bare plastic pipe under fill is vulnerable to sharp stones and thermal movement; on awkward bends where sleeves won't sit, a wrap of urethane foam protects and freeze-proofs at once.

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Originally logged in Korean on April 1, 2026 — read the original. Translated and edited by the brothers who did the work.