Having recently moved in to a new place, I needed to unclog out both bathroom sink drains. This house was built in the 50’s and the previous owner used draino liberally, so both drain tail pipes snapped like twigs at the threads when I went to remove the trap. I tried replacing only the damaged parts, but ultimately, nothing was salvageable, as each part I replaced led to another catastrophically failing.
The guest bathroom plumbing wasn’t too bad, as the vanity is spacious and things were at least installed correctly despite the damage. The en suite, however, has a cramped vanity, is too tiny to lay down in, and whoever did the plumbing directly abs-welded the <1" wall stub to a DWV elbow instead of using a slip joint. I had to take a hacksaw blade and gently floss the pipe between the wall and the joint, taking ~45 minutes and only having enough room to use my fingers to grab the blade
The plumbing is now done correctly, uses the right parts, and will never see draino again as long as I live here.
Been there. With drain plumbing especially, disassembling and cleaning the old stuff is usually some combination of frustrating, anxious and gross, and working upside down in cramped spaces is not great either. Once you get out the nasty bits it usually goes OK.
The 50s were in a lot of ways the pinnacle of home construction. Framing was way better at least.
I really enjoy the design of this house. It was my Fianceé’s grandmother’s untile she recently passed, and by and large, things were done correctly. The only glaring issues so far have been the plumbing and the fact that the upstairs loft addition was never insulated.
I layed ethernet through the attic to add a WAP to the loft and found that there is enough room up there to put in a secret room. There is already a bookshelf on the adjoining wall that I can convert into a Scooby-Doo style secret bookshelf passageway.