Plumbing

I've found that being “retired” doesn't mean that I'm retired from fixing things around the house.

The other day I noticed a dripping sound coming from the bathroom faucet, so I told myself, Self, one of these days, you've got to fix that! I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but then nothing is these days.

After putting it off as long as I could, I gathered some tools and tried to shut off the water to the sink. I laid down on the floor, reached up, turned the handle on the cold water shutoff valve and was rewarded with a spray of water, most of which went down the sleeve of my shirt into my armpit. I frantically opened the valve back up and the spray stopped. I realized that the packing had dried out over the years and the packing nut had to be tightened, so I slowly creaked up to my feet, ( laying down is pretty easy, it's getting up that's hard!) and went out to the shop for an adjustable wrench.

I finally got the packing nuts tightened on both valves and shut them off. I intended to replace the washers or O rings, or whatever it took to stop the faucet from dripping. I removed the handle and tried to loosen the screw underneath. It was badly corroded and wouldn't turn. The whole faucet was in pretty bad shape, so instead of taking the chance of breaking something important, and spraying water all over the bathroom, I decided to get a whole new faucet set.

I went to see the friendly hardware man at Ace hardware and found that their faucets were pretty 'pricey' or 'spendy' as some of the locals say, so I ordered one from Amazon dot com on the Internet, (You can get almost anything from them!) We would just have to put up with the drip for a while longer.

Unfortunately for me, the new faucet arrived in just a few days and I no longer had any excuse for delaying what I knew from experience was going to be a bitch.

You see, I had done the same job twice before; It seems like every ten years or so I'm destined to crawl under the bathroom or kitchen sink and pretend, painfully, to be a plumber. I didn't like doing it twenty years ago, and I still don't like doing it, especially now, with tremors and loss of dexterity lending me a hand.

I unhooked and unscrewed the fittings, pipes and lines, lifted the sink off of the pedestal and put it on the floor, where I removed the old faucet and drain. It looked like it was time for another trip to Ace hardware, where I bought a tube of silicone sealer to make the new drain assembly water tight. When I read the instructions on the tube, (the printing was so small that I had to use my reading glasses and a magnifying glass,) I found that it had a 3 hour drying time, so after installing the new faucet and drain, it was time for a break, or actually another trip to Ace for new supply line hoses because the old ones appeared to be too short.

The friendly hardware man recognized me and led me to the supply line department on aisle four, where a myriad of hoses hung, all of different lengths and sizes. He helped me search through them and it seemed as though they had every size made except the ones I wanted. I finally settled for a couple that were too long, but better too long than too short. As I was checking out, the cashier asked me, “How is your day going, sir?” In reply I held up the supply lines. A pitying look crossed her face and she said, “I feel your pain!” I doubt it, I thought.

By then I'd been up and down off of the bathroom floor enough times that my elbows, hips and knees were getting sore, but I was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully it wasn't a train! Everything started falling into place and with the help of my reading glasses, my computer glasses and my head lamp, I got the supply and drain lines hooked up and tightened. Holding my breath I opened the water valves and much to my amazement there wasn't one leak!

Maybe ten years from now, if I'm still around, I'll call a plumber.