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Sunday, November 20, 2005

I hate plumbing

I hate plumbing. I hate it with such a passion that whenever I have to actually duel with the plumbing beast only one comes out alive, and then just barely. The concept of plumbing is so simple that it seems like it should be a pretty easy task to take care of minor household issues that arise, yet, in practice, it never is.

The only times that I really wish I lived in a new, mass produced house are when I have plumbing issues in my old, one-of-a-kind pad. New homes are made of little boards, Styrofoam and drywall. My house is made of adobe, bricks and mortar. Thankfully the issue at hand didn't require having to drill through all 18 inches of the wall again, that was damn near impossible with ordinary tools, but it still was not an easy job. I had to change a faucet in the kitchen.

The kitchen faucet has been in serious need of replacement for about (let's see... Carry the one...) two and a half years. My father-in-law actually gave me a faucet about two years ago (nice one too. Quite heavy, all copper inside) that has been just sitting in the junk room. I decided I really better go ahead and put the new faucet on, for real this time, the other day when I went to fill the dogs' water dish and more water was spraying out of the sides of the faucet than was getting into the bowl. On the up side, it only took half an hour to find the faucet (my previous attempts at locating it had not yielded any results. Most likely since I was only doing a half-assed job of looking for it since I hate plumbing so much).

The problem with the plumbing in my house is that it is old, really old. With the exception of the main water line (which I had to replace last year at Christmas) it is all galvanized. Really old galvanized. It looks perfectly fine on the outside, yet it is so rusted on the inside that if I touch it it is likely to break. And usually does. So I was a wee bit apprehensive about working on it today, but I was at the point where I either had to replace it or find a way to fill a glass with water shooting straight into the air.

I shut off the main water supply to the house via the valve that I added when I replaced the main line (as the shut off at the street doesn't work and the city has ignored my repeated requests to replace it). Those little valves under the sink might look like they are intended to turn off the water supply but, in practice, the are more likely to break off in your hand than actually have any effect on water flow. I didn't want to have to get into replacing those (heh, more on that later). I ever so gently removed the hoses from the valves under the sink (which I did first only because this was where major disaster could happen and if disaster was going to happen I didn't want it to be when I was damn near done), no breakage, I was home free...

I would have been home free, had I replaced the faucet two and a half years ago...

The minerals in water are an odd bunch. They have the ability to corrode the stainless steel and metal parts of the faucet, while adding a huge build-up of greenish gunk to the copper parts. Two and a half years of adding greenish gunk to the copper threads that hold the faucet in place are not easily overcome.

I happened to have a basin wrench at my disposal. That is a wonderful little tool (picture to the right) that is just absolutely fucking useless in my experience. I bought the thing (well one exactly like it) shortly after I moved into the house when I had to replace the faucet in the bathroom. The nuts on the bathroom faucet were so fused to the pipes that I bent the t-bar on the basin wrench and was still not able to make them move. I eventually had to use a hacksaw on the bathroom faucet, but I did have the basin wrench for future projects. Projects like replacing the kitchen faucet where it would prove to be equally useless.

The nuts that hold the faucet to the sink are made of plastic, they even have little ridges on them so that you can tighten them with only your fingers (I suppose the manufacturer theorizes that you can loosen them in the same manner, they are sorely mistaken). Since the nuts are made of plastic they neither corrode or get chemical build up on them. They were the only part of the whole damn sink that were in perfect shape. Thing is, there is no way to turn the little plastic nuts. They were meant to be tightened by fingers, not metal tools. When I tried to loosen the little things with the aforementioned basin wrench I was able to get about a full turn out of each nut before there was nothing left for the tool to grip. Bring on the hacksaw!

There is only about a two inch space behind your average faucet before you encounter a wall. That is a real problem when trying to saw, what with the sawing action requiring some actual forward and back movement. Even with the saw turned as sideways as I could get it I was only able to make strokes of three inches or so. It took over a half an hour to cut through the first of the two water supplies (above the sink, mind you). The cold water side was the one that remained. Since I am right handed, and the cold water supply is on the right, it was requiring a weird sort of underhand saw stroke which was hurting my arm and going nowhere. The diameter of the hole that the supply goes into is about an inch, the diameter of the nut is about an inch and a half... Hmmm. I wonder if I could just rip the whole thing out of the top without destroying the sink.

I did rip the whole thing right out of the top of the sink, nut and all. The picture to the left shows what was left of the faucet, as well as that stupid nut. Keep in mind that the nasty little nut (that being the ugly black thing) came out of a hole that was much smaller than it. I was so pissed off by the time I got the thing out that I literally just threw it in the direction of the door to the outside. The damage to the sink was minimal, there was a bit of bending involved in getting the hole back to level but that was about it. It was only when I dug this old piece of shit out of the trash (to snap a photo) that I started to wonder how in the fuck I managed to get that big ass piece of plastic through such a small hole.

Unfortunately the new faucet is now in place, with no leaks, thank you, and I'll be damned if I am gonna take it out just to snap a photo of the size of the hole it came out of. That nut has a flange on it. It is specifically designed so that you can't rip it out from the top. It took only anger, rage, anger, superhuman strength, anger, crying, anger, and a bit of finesse to rip that sucker out. That or I managed to catch an edge of the plastic from the top of the sink and the steel cut through the plastic as I basically unscrewed it. That wouldn't be much of a tale to tell though. Plus, I have photographic proof of my superhuman accomplishment!

The big downside to this all is that my jerry-rigged connection to the water purifier got fucked up in the process (cross threaded a brass connector into a PVC junction). I am going to have to actually replace one of the valves under the sink after all, or live without an ice maker. I doubt the wife will let me live without an ice maker (not that she will encourage me to fix it or anything, more that she will probably kill me if I don't). When I try to replace that valve tomorrow, and it breaks (oh yeah, it is gonna break. This is my life), I will have to replace another significant portion of the plumbing for the rest of the house (since everything else will break in turn).

Did I mention that I hate plumbing?

posted by Donnie (aka Shadowtwin) # 3:06 PM

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ShadowTwin Home Site Links: Arthur Witles Who I am - Site info Music Lost to History Archive Horoscope Archive Original Poetry Pre-Blogger Archives Stuff I Made Vacation Photos My coming of age story. Programs I use for the site Email me Latest Humorous T-shirt Slogan: "You Wish!" This one has to be taken in context to be appreciated. The girl wearing this belly shirt was maybe 5'0" tall, with a muffin top going on, despite the fact that she was clearly in her third trimester of pregnancy. In addition she was wearing a thong that came up past her low-rise jeans and pushed her muffin top down over the edge to really emphasize the roll. I'm not in perfect shape so I don't expect that others should be, but when you are wearing that shirt, along with the rest of the outfit, you open yourself to scrutiny (and perhaps random looks of horror). 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But as you board that plane today, the stars want you to know that you needn't worry about it. The debris field will be more than 8 square miles, making it impossible to find most human remains. Not to mention that the ensuing fire burned so hot that it disintegrated not only all fabric, but most of the thin metals aboard as well. Gemini: 5/21-6/21 You just had to get that genital piercing, didn't you? The stars tried to warn you not to, but you went ahead and did it anyway... Now all your worst fears will come to bear when, at a campground this weekend, you run afoul of this guy: Cancer: 6/22-7/22 The less traveled by areas of the Grand Canyon's north rim offer some of the most breathtaking views of this natural wonder. You will soon find out they also include some of the worst footings and none of the handrails. They do, however, provide equally awe-inspiring, terminal velocity impacts. Leo: 7/23-8/22 The stars heard your pleas, begging for someone who you could share your love with and embrace for the rest of your life. If you are still single, throw your arms around the closest person to you at 3:44pm GMT on Dcember 9th -That'll be the one. Trust us, you won't have time to be picky... Virgo: 8/23-9/22 The stars have piled up most of your things on the front porch. You can stay at a friend's house, but you aren't coming back home until you admit what you did and apologize. The stars' Mother was right about you... (you must have really pissed them off; the stars were in tears while they told me this) Libra: 9/23-10/22 The stars have been doing a little thinking and a lot of math. The population of planet earth is roughly 6,796,590,704. That means that roughly 566,382,558 people share each astrological sign. About 18,620,796 have the same birthday. Based on average life expectancy as many as 248,277 people were born on the same day, in the same year, for every zodiac sign. How can one statement possibly predict the future of all of them? Ehh, fuck it. "A full moon while Venus is rising is an omen of good things to come." Scorpio: 10/23-11/21 They say you never know how you are going to react to a crisis. After a home invasion this weekend you will: You will scream, "Do whatever you want to my wife, but leave me alone!" You will then create a distraction by throwing your newborn at the assailant as you dive through the window to safety. Now you know. Music lost to history: *Aerosmith - Dream On* When I started doing these, I could never have imagined that I would be putting an Aerosmith song here. Since I was born in 1974, this song is well before my generation. It was recorded in 1972 and released in 1983 on Aerosmith's Self-Titled Album, but to read the information on it at Wikipedia most of us would become familiar with it from a re-release in 1976. Like most of the music being released in the late 60's/early 70's that was pushing the rock-n-roll envelope, Dream On relies heavily on solid composition and and melody. Before the era of the modern effects processor, these bands had no distortion to hide behind (or very little), and synthesized instruments hadn't yet made their way into music. In that way the music always sounds more raw to us today because, quite simply, it was. While it seems laughable to think about today, music like this was so far removed from the bubble-gum pop of the 50's that it still wasn't accepted into the mainstream. As the baby-boomers became the target demographic, the rock-n-roll movement really started to pick up speed, with bands like Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith clearing the path for the much darker and heavier bands like Black Sabbath. While I (and most of my generation) are probably far more familiar with the Aerosmith of the late 80's and early 90's, the reason this song makes it onto my MLtH page comes down to one thing: Age. Not necessarily the age of the song; In fact, as I sat down to do the research for this today, I had no idea when it was released, but would have guessed (closely) the mid 70's. Tyler was born March 26, 1948, meaning that this song was written when he was only 24 years old. I'm not sure why, but I have always thought this song was pretty amazing given his age at composition. I suppose it is human nature to wax poetic about the days of yore and the imminent passage of time, but the melody sets a mood that makes you feel it right along with him. As the song nears the end and his lyrics become more more frenzied, you can almost feel the pain (longing?) in his voice. Listen to it with headphones and no distraction sometime, you'll see what I mean. I wrote a short bit some time ago about Kelly Sweet's cover of this song (see the video on Youtube). While I have since gotten over the initial hatred I felt towards the cover of the song, I still just can't like it. The words are there; she hits the notes; but I just can't hear it in her voice. As if there is somthing very personal about the song and Tyler's deliverance of the lyrics that just can't be duplicated. At least to me. That said, I have heard Aerosmith doing the song with an orchestra, and it also seems to lack the passion of the original. So perhaps the thing that I like so much about it is the under-produced, raw sound of it, or it may be that I am still hearing it through the ears of that impressionable youth that heard if for the first time in a dusty old Van with my Uncle Art. Either way, it seems it is Lost to History. Music Lost to History Archive I Can't Believe it's Not Porn! WhorePresents.comYep, it's not porn. It's not a site with gifts for sale either, which is probably a good thing since I can't imagine that any woman would be at all flattered to get a gift -no matter how nice- in a box that says "Whore Presents.com" on it. Daily Reading: BlackChampagne Magazine Man Shane Nickerson Wil Wheaton Boners Hoyazo's Poker Blog My reading list changes from time to time, and there are many sites that I visit that are not on the list. They are listed in the order that I visit them, enjoy!
	Shadowtwin.com: I hate plumbing Sunday, November 20, 2005 I hate plumbing I hate plumbing. I hate it with such a passion that whenever I have to actually duel with the plumbing beast only one comes out alive, and then just barely. The concept of plumbing is so simple that it seems like it should be a pretty easy task to take care of minor household issues that arise, yet, in practice, it never is. The only times that I really wish I lived in a new, mass produced house are when I have plumbing issues in my old, one-of-a-kind pad. New homes are made of little boards, Styrofoam and drywall. My house is made of adobe, bricks and mortar. Thankfully the issue at hand didn't require having to drill through all 18 inches of the wall again, that was damn near impossible with ordinary tools, but it still was not an easy job. I had to change a faucet in the kitchen. The kitchen faucet has been in serious need of replacement for about (let's see... Carry the one...) two and a half years. My father-in-law actually gave me a faucet about two years ago (nice one too. Quite heavy, all copper inside) that has been just sitting in the junk room. I decided I really better go ahead and put the new faucet on, for real this time, the other day when I went to fill the dogs' water dish and more water was spraying out of the sides of the faucet than was getting into the bowl. On the up side, it only took half an hour to find the faucet (my previous attempts at locating it had not yielded any results. Most likely since I was only doing a half-assed job of looking for it since I hate plumbing so much). The problem with the plumbing in my house is that it is old, really old. With the exception of the main water line (which I had to replace last year at Christmas) it is all galvanized. Really old galvanized. It looks perfectly fine on the outside, yet it is so rusted on the inside that if I touch it it is likely to break. And usually does. So I was a wee bit apprehensive about working on it today, but I was at the point where I either had to replace it or find a way to fill a glass with water shooting straight into the air. I shut off the main water supply to the house via the valve that I added when I replaced the main line (as the shut off at the street doesn't work and the city has ignored my repeated requests to replace it). Those little valves under the sink might look like they are intended to turn off the water supply but, in practice, the are more likely to break off in your hand than actually have any effect on water flow. I didn't want to have to get into replacing those (heh, more on that later). I ever so gently removed the hoses from the valves under the sink (which I did first only because this was where major disaster could happen and if disaster was going to happen I didn't want it to be when I was damn near done), no breakage, I was home free... I would have been home free, had I replaced the faucet two and a half years ago... The minerals in water are an odd bunch. They have the ability to corrode the stainless steel and metal parts of the faucet, while adding a huge build-up of greenish gunk to the copper parts. Two and a half years of adding greenish gunk to the copper threads that hold the faucet in place are not easily overcome. I happened to have a basin wrench at my disposal. That is a wonderful little tool (picture to the right) that is just absolutely fucking useless in my experience. I bought the thing (well one exactly like it) shortly after I moved into the house when I had to replace the faucet in the bathroom. The nuts on the bathroom faucet were so fused to the pipes that I bent the t-bar on the basin wrench and was still not able to make them move. I eventually had to use a hacksaw on the bathroom faucet, but I did have the basin wrench for future projects. Projects like replacing the kitchen faucet where it would prove to be equally useless. The nuts that hold the faucet to the sink are made of plastic, they even have little ridges on them so that you can tighten them with only your fingers (I suppose the manufacturer theorizes that you can loosen them in the same manner, they are sorely mistaken). Since the nuts are made of plastic they neither corrode or get chemical build up on them. They were the only part of the whole damn sink that were in perfect shape. Thing is, there is no way to turn the little plastic nuts. They were meant to be tightened by fingers, not metal tools. When I tried to loosen the little things with the aforementioned basin wrench I was able to get about a full turn out of each nut before there was nothing left for the tool to grip. Bring on the hacksaw! There is only about a two inch space behind your average faucet before you encounter a wall. That is a real problem when trying to saw, what with the sawing action requiring some actual forward and back movement. Even with the saw turned as sideways as I could get it I was only able to make strokes of three inches or so. It took over a half an hour to cut through the first of the two water supplies (above the sink, mind you). The cold water side was the one that remained. Since I am right handed, and the cold water supply is on the right, it was requiring a weird sort of underhand saw stroke which was hurting my arm and going nowhere. The diameter of the hole that the supply goes into is about an inch, the diameter of the nut is about an inch and a half... Hmmm. I wonder if I could just rip the whole thing out of the top without destroying the sink. I did rip the whole thing right out of the top of the sink, nut and all. The picture to the left shows what was left of the faucet, as well as that stupid nut. Keep in mind that the nasty little nut (that being the ugly black thing) came out of a hole that was much smaller than it. I was so pissed off by the time I got the thing out that I literally just threw it in the direction of the door to the outside. The damage to the sink was minimal, there was a bit of bending involved in getting the hole back to level but that was about it. It was only when I dug this old piece of shit out of the trash (to snap a photo) that I started to wonder how in the fuck I managed to get that big ass piece of plastic through such a small hole. Unfortunately the new faucet is now in place, with no leaks, thank you, and I'll be damned if I am gonna take it out just to snap a photo of the size of the hole it came out of. That nut has a flange on it. It is specifically designed so that you can't rip it out from the top. It took only anger, rage, anger, superhuman strength, anger, crying, anger, and a bit of finesse to rip that sucker out. That or I managed to catch an edge of the plastic from the top of the sink and the steel cut through the plastic as I basically unscrewed it. That wouldn't be much of a tale to tell though. Plus, I have photographic proof of my superhuman accomplishment! The big downside to this all is that my jerry-rigged connection to the water purifier got fucked up in the process (cross threaded a brass connector into a PVC junction). I am going to have to actually replace one of the valves under the sink after all, or live without an ice maker. I doubt the wife will let me live without an ice maker (not that she will encourage me to fix it or anything, more that she will probably kill me if I don't). When I try to replace that valve tomorrow, and it breaks (oh yeah, it is gonna break. This is my life), I will have to replace another significant portion of the plumbing for the rest of the house (since everything else will break in turn). Did I mention that I hate plumbing? posted by Donnie (aka Shadowtwin) # 3:06 PM Comments: Post a Comment << Home Archives June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 July 2007 October 2007 December 2007 February 2008 August 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 July 2009 August 2009 October 2009 November 2009 All site content is © Donnie Burgess 2006-2009 Site design was stolen directly from Blackchampagne.

I hate plumbing

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