On Saturday last weekend, I replaced the faucet on the kitchen sink. It’s a simple process - Step 1: remove old faucet... Yeah, right. I eventually used a ratchet handle as a hammer to pound the “finger-tight” plastic nuts loose, with insufficient clearance and no way to actually see what I was doing.
You see, Regina water has peculiar properties: the lime in it can cement the threads of nuts and bolts more securely than rust.
But I persevered, and managed to install the new faucet in half an hour. AFTER removing the old one. We tested the new faucet, and it worked wonderfully. Except there was a small leak in a horizontal section of the drainpipe. Ah, crap; the banging and smashing of finge - plastic things must have loosened a solder joint in the pipe. No problem, ‘cause I have a propane torch and I can figure out how to put more solder into the leaking joint. The Internet helped me there, and the next day, I began to get to work.
The propane torch didn’t work. I’m not able to see what’s wrong with it. It may just be dust in the burne unit, but I can’t see how to clean it. So I put a margarine container under the very small leak, and made plans to fix the drain this weekend. I started by buying a new propane torch yesterday. No problem.
I started to look at the pipes this afternoon. Sunday. Father’s Day afternoon.
I grabbed the pipe to wiggle it to see how loose the bad joint was, and my thumb went THROUGH the copper.
Remember the peculiar properties I mentioned of Regina’s municipal water supply? It corrodes copper pipes. It can take more than twenty years, but our drinking water will corrode copper pipes. And some of us drink the stuff.
So I called my father for moral support, and he came to watch and help as needed. Fortunately, the previous owner of the house left an eight foot long piece of pipe of just the right diameter in the basement rafters. Dad and I cut the pipe, cleaned it up, got the old, corroded piece out, and replaced it, with a false start here and there. It took about three hours, but we got it done.
We tested our work: it leaked from a different joint. I touched the vertical pipe next to that joint, and the copper collapsed. This time, the corroded pipe was the one attached to the sink drain. Ah, crap; we shoulda checked that, and we could've replaced both pieces at the same time. Oh well.
We heated and separated the bottom joint, took the remains outside, heated the top joint and got the corroded pipe off the flanged pipe from below the drain. We used our knowledge from the previous false starts and actually made good time in getting the old pieces of plumbing ready for the second new piece of copper pipe.
Did I mention that the eight-foot leftover pipe in the basement was a bit dirty? For lack of a wire brush, we used emery paper on the inside for over an hour to get it clean enough to solder into place. The sun had set by the time we had tested the fit, prepared the two new joints with flux, and heated the joints to solder them in place. Oh, and we remembered the plastic washer that goes between the plastic drain and the copper pipe.
We finished the second pipe relatively painlessly, and tested the new pipe again. And it leaked again. Crap. When I heated the joint, I accidentally melted the plastic parts above it. And those parts would be the bottom end of the drain.
By then it was 9:30 p.m. There are no hardware stores open. And I have to work in the morning.
My father has volunteered to pick up a new drain tomorrow from the nearest hardware store, and will help my Beloved (known for now as my first wife) install the new drain. Then she’ll be able to wash today’s dishes.
It’s now 11 p.m. and I haven’t yet gotten all the melted plastic off the top of the copper pipe. I also haven’t started the proofreading I volunteered to do for my dear friend who’s writing a newsletter for the Society for Creative Anachronism. She came to the house at 7:30 this evening to pick it up, and I have completely forgotten it.
I have drunk some Bailey’s Irish Cream and some tea. And I’m very frustrated with plumbing. I’m also rather sweaty now, so I’ll post this, have a couple of laps of the bath tub, and proofread what I can before I fall asleep exhausted.
And that was my Father’s Day.
I hate "holidays."
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7 comments:
I find this post facinating in that a) you take delight in describing the small details of the water the rust, the copper, the joints and b) Much of this is not only incomprehensible to me but actively turns in the type of adult speak on Charlie Brown "Wa wawa Wa wa wa WA WA!"
I am sorry the plumbing seems to be a job that turns into another job but this is why in our household we have a phrase, "This is why men were born" as in, Why should we think on these things when we can hire men who actually LIKE to think and do this stuff. Yes we are horrid gender stereotypers and in Wales there was actually several courses from the lesbian network to teach women plumbing and we both decided that not only did we have no interest, we would probably be ashamed to tell people we spent time changing the flange on the U-bend because of I dunno, whatever!
But I am glad you CAN do these things for your family and your father can help and save you money, I am only sorry it didn't go as planned. I think the last time I used a solder was in the girl scouts to make a Crystal Radio set, which was supposed to impress us on how ANYONE could make a radio. And our impression was, "But this one sucks, and I can by one with a tape player with it which is better!" - Adults always seemed grumpy after asking how we liked doing our projects!
Yeah, NOW I could see the Charlie Brown teacher lecturing here. But last night, I was so frustrated....
And I fond out something else about Regina water today. Rona (the hardware store) stocks anode rods for the water heater. Okay, Beth, bear with me. There's a rod inside your home's water heater (except you're in an apartment and never have to deal with trivia like water heaters), and that rod, the anode rod, kinda sucks up, in some chemistry/physics sort of way, bad stuff in the water.
However, Saskatchewan is the ONLY province in Canada in which you'll find anode rods at Rona. Nowhere else in Canada will you EVER need to replace this rod, but Saskatchewan (especially Regina) water is so corrosive that the anode rods need changing every few years.
But you've visited Regina, and probably been tasted by our water. Disgusting stuff. our Brita filters last about one third the advertised time, too.
Now, my dear Beth, MOST women would mary a man to get the plumbing stuff taken care of. But I suppose you'd counter with "SMART women hire real plumbers, and marry for love." And you're probably better off for it, too, luv. :)
Okay, it's probably a guy thing, except for the grads of the courses in Wales. I was mostly venting in order to avoid blowing up at my Beloved Wife. And if I had the money, I'd've hired a real plumber too.
Isn't that the way... I have never had a plumbing job go smoothly. I have a dripping faucet now and I'm sure it just needs a new washer and/or O-ring but I keep putting off dealing with it. I just know the moment I touch wrench to pipe multiple other things will go wrong.
This reminds me of when my dad says "Oh yes - simple! That will take no time to fix". And for him (usually) it's a breeze.
But I think he forgets all the years when, as a child, I was ushered away from where he was doing jobs around the house because of the amount (and volume) of profanity in the air.
He's mastered so many fiddly, tricky, perplexing little jobs I am constantly in awe.
But when he hits a job he's not done before ... well there's a usually a long tale to tell!
One day hopefully you too shall hum as you dash through this 'little job' - and one day you'll forget how bl@@dy exasperating it was this time around!
For some reason I find plumbing to be completely fascinating. Growing up, I didn't learn much practical "guy stuff" like plumbing, car repair, carpentry, and so on, and I really wish I had, because I know almost nothing about how to fix things around my house and car. I'm left with three options: hire someone to do repairs for me with money I don't have, get an instruction book from the library and try to fake it myself, or just let the broken thing stay broken. And I usually end up with a combination of the last two... I hope you fare better, and get your pipes fixed eventually!
Now that I have read the post like, four more times and finally gotten that many of the things which you describe in detail are not out of LOVE but out of exasperation and a sort of contained frustrated fury I see that my comment was NOT the most supportive and I am sorry about that. I am sorry things went pear shaped and I hope that alcohol and bath helped with that.
I have however always maintained that if NASA wanted to see how things would survive on mars (like little machines and robots), I say, don't pay for special facilities, but just sent them to Sask. - as it gets, up in Battlefords as cold as Mars in the winter and now you say that the province has special acid water. Truly those who live there must be hardy individuals (who glow in the dark!).
Beth: I'm not offended at the way you first looked at the post. No apologies necessary. But it was quite definitely frustration that led me to the keyboard. And I felt surprising amounts better when I finished.
Cheryl: I've avoided the washer on the bath taps for far too long. We should really replace the (antique) faucet there, but to get something that'll fit the claw-footed fub will be over 200 dollars.
Rachelcreative: When I was a teenager, my father was stupid. Now I'm amazed at how much more intelligent he gets every year. There were terse words, and foul language, mostly under my breath, except for the colourful squeak when I burned my arm on the propane-heated drain. The blister broke, so it's officially third-degree, but it was a very brief contact, and it's so shallow the hairs and their follicles weren't damaged.
Tayi: I know how you feel. I'm interested in many trades, but I'm NOT going to attempt most of them. I am carving a cane/walking stick, though. I'm so tall that the local mobility places don't stock canes long enough for me (I need a 41" cane). There was some years-old willow at work from a chair-building workshop, and it was going to be thrown away, so I liberated several pieces, and I'm slowly carving a cane or two.
NASA did send the early Apollo astronauts to Sudbury, because it's very close to lunar topography. Several car and tire manufacturers test their wares in northern Canada for durability.
And I don't know about North Battleford, but Regina has several times in the last few winters been the coldest place on Earth. Trivia time: we have a temperature range of about 150 degrees F. between summer and winter extremes.
If you really want to know what it's like on Mars, go to the Environment Canada site; they have a link to Mars weather!
Cheers, all!
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