Cleaning and recoating the stand.
Quick hand sanding and a coat of polyurethane took care of some of the saltcreep that had occurred from my sloppy tank work.
For me, this has been the most difficult part of the project. I had to move the water from the sump to the tank through 30 feet of crawlspace. And yes – you HAVE to crawl for all of it. There are minimal crouching capabilities in this crawlspace. The other concern is that with so much plumbing running in the back of the tank – and the location of the tank being by an open wall, the distance from the wall would be an eyesore. Based on the 2 – 1†closed loop feeds with elbows and the 1.5†closed loop return, it seemed like the tank would have to sit out pretty far.
Here’s how I solved this:
I mounted the 1†closed loop returns flush with the back of the tank – and angled them into the stand into a central 1.5†pipe. Putting this central pipe IN the stand took care of half of the issue:
That left the closed loop returns to contend with. I had a brainwave – hell, if I cut holes in the wall for the main pipes, what’s a few more holes? The wife disagreed, but when I told her the outcome would be a tank that wasn’t sitting 5†from the wall, she changed her mind.
At first I cut the top hole and the bottom hole thinking I could plumb the top and bottom separately.
To fit onto:
Then I realized even with a helper it was impossible to hold the pipes in the precarious position that they were and keep them solid on the back of the tank. Then I grabbed the holesaw again. - you can see in the first picture where I essentially opened up the wall to get the vertical pipes in there.
This allowed me to plumb the pipes on the tank – then move it into place.
This resulted in an overall distance from the wall of exactly 1" (because of the 1" pipe running up the back. With a 1/2" quarteround trim on the baseboard - this is about the best I could hope for.....