Mr Fix-It

While I am sure that the professionals have many maxims to live by, when it comes to plumbing for newbies, there’s pretty much only one that matters:

Any idiot can take it apart. Putting it back together is what you need to worry about.

I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not the sewer backup, or yard drainage – this was cosmetics.

The bathroom tap has always annoyed me, and (having purchased a replacement faucet about six months ago) I finally decided to hook the damn thing up. We’re selling the house, I’m not porting the faucet over to a new place – and (damn!) the old one is an eyesore.

It’s an eyesore because of something called galvanic corrosion. Two different metals in contact with each other leading to something called ion migration, which in turn speeds up the rust process of one of the two metals. In the case of my bathroom, the exposed metal of the faucet was the loser.

And it looked like boiled ass.

Changing a faucet is no big deal – it’s like roofing. Mostly grunt work, with a few tricky parts.

I get my stuff. Faucet, instructions, wrench, flashlight, drain pan – check. I remember that the new faucet doesn’t have flex hose, but a quick consult with BIL tells me that there’s no bar on re-using the old ones.

Thus prepared, I start. I have visions of getting all my gear under the sink and getting to work. This goes out the window when I discover that my narrow bathroom makes even getting under the vanity an exercise in contortion.

There’s no room for me, much less the gear – and here’s the thing:

While I am not claustrophobic, (elevators, mummy bags, tunnels and mineshafts don’t bother me in the slightest) I have this problem with being pinned in cramped quarters. I can’t turn around, move my arms, something – a part of my brain starts sounding alarm bells.

In order to reach the narrow gap between the basin and the back wall, I need to be jammed full on into the vanity, on my back, at a diagonal, legs in the tub holding my back off the floor so the edge of the vanity doesn’t score my spine, AND-
I can barely move my arms.

This sucks for lots of reasons besides the fact my mind has an irrational fear of it – I can barely get the damn wrench into position and have about enough room for 1/32 of a turn.

It's slow and painful, but otherwise, getting the sink apart goes well. Hoses drip water on my head, but I get the old faucet out without too much cursing.

The curse count is important – anybody working on a project will tell you. We can all be smiling church folk when the job goes well – but the more things go south, the more we all sound like sailors.

Anyway, not having replaced a faucet in, I dunno, forever. I have my instruction sheet in front of me to make sure I don’t miss anything.

Now, I work in usability, but no matter how bad a piece of software is, the documentation is always worse. Plumbing hardware is no exception – it sucks. Major steps like “cut the pipe above the trap to the desired length” are left out. Instructions like “apply joint compound” are included in the documentation when there are stickers on the hardware telling you “do not use joint compound.” I have no joint compound, but since the parts are telling me specifically not to use it – I think I’m okay.

The book says “put plumbers putty below the faucet,” the faucet says not to. And so on.

Mind screaming, sans circulation in pretty much all extremities, I eventually get the faucet seated, the hoses attached and I put on the trap –

-only to realize that the drain pipe is way the hell too long. I need to take the thing apart so I can cut it.

Now, next time I do this, I’ll likely remember to check this before I start, but I ask you: would it be too hard for them to put this little tidbit in the instructions? How about in the home depot book I shelled out thirty bucks for?

I have no saw to cut the pipe – My only power saw is completely unsuitable and in any event, I have no vice – and holding onto pipe so I can use a saw ill-suited to cut plastic pipe – I score some tin snips and go to town.

It’s almost 9pm and I’m rather keen on getting this done. I hack the pipe down to what looks like the right length. It looks ugly, but what ya gonna do?

I put it in, assemble the collage of co-dependent parts and – it’s too long by about a half a centimeter.

The cursing begins in earnest, now – ten parts are disassembled yet again, and I hack off the offending portion of the pipe.

It goes in, and fits. Back sore, shoulders numb. I clean everything up and turn on the tap.

It works – (of course it works, getting the water to flow is the easy part, stopping it is always the hard part).

I put a tub under it with a paper towel to see how it does over time.

Five minutes later, I realize that

a) it leaks, slowly; and
b) The faucet parts have lied to me. I really should have gotten joint compound.

So now, I’m off to Home Depot – but it’s after 9pm on a Sunday and they are closed and dark.

Frick. It’s bedtime, I put in the basin and hit the sack.

Next day, E finds that the basin under the sink is full to overflowing (another maxim to remember: Slow leaks? They speed up sometimes.)
The water’s switched off, and I go out hunting.

I get my joint compound and crawl back under there. Excruciating moments later, I make another realization:

c) I never should have re-used flex hose that old.

Amazingly, it appears that the all the joints are holding, but the flex hose is failing where the hose meets the top of the fitting.

Water off again, bedtime.

Next day, I go and buy flex hose. That night I put in the flex hose. And it is good. I put the basin and the paper towel under the sink, purely as a formality.

-except that there is a wet spot on it the following morning. WTH?

I scope out the trajectory of the spot to figure out where the hell it’s coming from – it ain’t the flexhose – it’s the drain pipe. Following the water up, it’s the top of the drain pipe.

Half a turn tighter and – bam! No leak.

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I know, household hero now, right? The new faucet looks good, works a hell of a lot better than the old one. I wonder why I hadn’t done this ages ago.

But that’s not why I’m posting this.

I’m posting this because of the maxim I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

Because a few days after doing the faucet, I noticed that the slop sink was draining very slow. I’d bought a snake a few days ago, and I put two and two together:

Wow, that faucet was so easy – I think I’ll take the slop sink trap apart and snake it.

Yeah! Take that house! I own your ass. Boo yah!

So, I crawl under the slop sink in the basement, crack the trap open with brute force and snake away. It’s gratifyingly messy – but I manage to get the snake around all the corners to a length of about six feet.

The drain probably isn’t cured, but it’ll drain better, I think – then I go to put the trap back.

Now, this is a trap joined into a concrete washbasin on one end – and cast iron on the other.

What this means is that if there is any problem with either end – I am totally screwed.

Naturally, there is something wrong with both ends.
The concrete is cracked and leaking around the embedded fitting. The cast iron joint on the other is (thanks to me) completely stripped.

Doubly screwed.

This is the basin that the water softener dumps 20-30 gallons into on a regular basis. This is the basin that the washing machine drains into.

No washing, and I need to switch off the softener.

Oh, and I’m showing the house to prospective buyers tomorrow.

Which is why I’m here at home, blogging – while the plumber (the REAL Mr. Fix-It) is in the other room installing a new trap with all the trimmings.

It’s 2:30pm and the people are coming around 3pm.

Oh how I love today.