Adventures in Plumbing

I’ve been way too lazy lately as far as blogging goes, but pretty industrious otherwise.

          It all began with a small spray from the kitchen faucet, but after I’d become adept at dodging the tiny stream of water aimed for my face, the stream upped the ante and was well on its way to becoming a gusher. Did we need a new faucet? A plumber?

          And of course this all kicked in on the weekend, the only time kids and pets get sick, and the plumbing goes rogue. 

     We disconnected the sprayer head, decided it might be a washer, and set out to search for just the right washer. Two hardware stores later and an education I’ll never need again (hopefully) in the world of washers, we moved on to bigger game, but not until I constructed a Rube Goldberg stopgap to get me through the rest of the weekend.

          Since with the arrival of YouTube has proved that with a video we can all repair anything, we were pretty confident. On Monday we snagged a new hose, emptied the area under the sink and considered out options.

          I have the agility to fold myself in half, but not the upper body strength to do much once I got there. My Guy has the upper body strength to turn all handles necessary, but getting him down to the floor, never mind under the sink, would take some doing.

          Compromise – I managed to close off the hot, but couldn’t budge the cold. (Good news – when the zombie apocalypse comes, I know now I can tuck myself away safely under the sink) 

He heroically descended to ground level, turned off the cold, removed the weight that keeps the hose from zinging up, and detached the old hose.

          The new hose went in about a thousand times easier and after we were both in an upright and unfolded position, we high fived like a herd of middle schoolers who had just won the big game.

Okay, there was the fact that when My Guy turned off output from the water heater, he dislodged some grunge that created a slow leak, but a visit from the plumber got us a new metal coupling. I won’t mention how much we *ahem* “saved” with our DIY project.