11 years of wisdom

[Melensdad]

My daughter is 11 years old. But more about that later.


Just before Christmas we put in new counter tops in the kitchen. I even documented the installation of the cooktop a while back. Well there has been one NAGGING problem with the new kitchen and that is a leak under the sink. The contractor (who is NOT a plumber) has been out twice to fix it, and he sent out another guy two more times. I've been under there a few times more than I care to trying to fix it. Each time I think its fixed, it is not really fixed.

So today the lovely Mrs_B is out for a few hours and I decide to tackle the sink. Me or it. A death match. Only the victor shall leave alive. 2 hours later I am cleaning up the mess. I think I solved the problem. The garbage disposal was loose. It appears to have been just that simple. So months of screwing around with taking the pipes off, changing gaskets, refitting pipes, has perhaps all been a waste of time. But before I figured out that the disposal fitting was loose, I had taken off every pipe under the sink. And of course I had worked on this leak several other times and had 2 other people in here working on it, and it has been a minor, but nagging problem for 4 months!

About this time my 11 year old daughter says "Daddy, why didn't you just call a plumber?"

Now how do I tell my daughter that daddy is not as smart as a few pieces of plastic pipe?

 

[OkeeDon]

My daughter is a little more than 11 -- she's almost 37 -- but she didn't acquire your daughter's smarts. The other evening, I got a call -- "Can you fix a shower valve over the phone?"

"OK", I said, "I'll bite. What's the problem?"

"We turned on the water, but the valve broke and wouldn't turn off. Doug turned off the water in the entire house and headed to the Home Depot 45 miles away. He just called me and said they had no parts for our rinky-dink valve, so he says he's coming home with a chain saw and ripping out the entire tub/shower unit so he can cap the pipe." (Did I mention that Doug can be a little hyper when frustrated?)

"Uh -- that's a bit drastic. Is it the hot side or the cold side?"

"Hot."

"Try this -- at the water heater, turn off the supply for hot water. Then, turn on the house water valve and see if you have cold water in the rest of the house."

"Yeah, that worked."

"OK, the emergency of having 3 tiny kids in the house and no water at all is over. Take 2 aspirin and call a plumber in the morning. They have magic hands that can replace a shower valve through that tiny hole in the wall."

The next day, I got a call from a sheepish Doug. The plumber came out, agreed that there were no parts in the known Western world for their shower valve, and replaced it through that little hole. It cost about 85 bucks.