Friday, July 5, 2013

plumbing like a boss

people tell you when you buy a house, "it's always something..." as in, always something friggin going wrong.  this week's issue - the cold water pipe under my bathroom sink decided to spring [past tense: sprung? sprang? springed?] a pinhole leak in the screw-on joint.  verrry silently hissing a mist spray down the inside of the cupboard, down the pipe, along the rafters, and straight onto the basement floor.  now fortunately my basement is unfinished and pipes are accessible and visible. 

but holy crap it must have been leaking for at least 2 days.  cos how did i find out?  i opened the cupboard in search of more hand soap at 9:45pm and water dribbled out on my foot.  cursing commenced.  when does home depot close?  10pm.  how long does it take me to get there?  about 8 minutes.  how long did i spend looking at a plumbing book/the internet/freaking out?  about 30.  needless to say, i went to bed that night knowing the pipe was leaking and there wasnt a damn thing i could do about it. 

after work the next day i drove my unhappy self to the depot and said help help!  armed with the appropriate stuffs - a "sharkbite" valve [self-sealing so no soldering needed...which was very disappointing], a copper tube cutter, and some sand paper, i returned home to tackle the project at hand.
i managed to find the water shutoff valve after only ..several minutes of tracing pipes along the basement, cut the copper pipe [somewhat neatly] and sand down the edges.  covered in slightly sandy miniscule metal filings and water i discovered... even though the guy told me the flexible portion should be long enough to reattach, it was about a half inch shy.  back to the HD i went, tubing in hand, and stomped down the plumbing aisle.  minutes later, reequipped with the appropriate length flexible tube with the correct ends... i went home, finished my project, and celebrated my small but very cheap plumbing victory! 

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