What Roofers Can't Do, Plumbers Can

We had this pipe in our basement. And it leaked more weeks than I wish to count for days. Dripping in our basement making a gigantic puddle causing some condensation, this pipe continued to drip. And drip. And drip. You know how pipes do that every once in awhile just to let a little pressure off because they're old?

Well, this pipe started dripping and like most pipes do, it continued dripping. For some reason, it is not a self correcting/sealing pipe.

So, considering the plumping expertise of the people that live in this house, we began utilizing an amazing feature. I mean seriously folks, I can't believe this plumbing repair option is not marketed yet. A person could really make a lot of money off advertising this, not to mention doing seminars, classes and home demonstrations.

What this Amazing Plumbing Repairs For Dummies involves is a strategically placed bucket that is positioned exactly in the precise angle and latitude and longitude of the impending drips coming from the invisible leak in the pipe. It takes quite a bit of concentration and investigating and calculating but once you do it a time or two, it is worth the effort.

My well experienced recommendation (and believe me, I have a lot of experience with this) would be to get several buckets and place them in the general vicinity of the drips. Although one bucket is better than none, several are better than one.

As mentioned already, this leak had been going on for several weeks a few days and the man of the house determined after some encouragement from his wife on his own that it was probably a good time to contact some professional help. AKA: plumber.

Of course, you can always hope that a leaky pipe will fix itself and I am pleased to say that we definitely gave this pipe time to heal his leak. We are such patient people, in fact, that we waited for a really long time. The Automated Reseal in the pipe just didn't happen.

Amazingly, the leak got worse. Instead of dumping the bucket a couple times a week, we were dumping it several times a day.

So the plumber came on Thursday and in no time flat, he has conquered the leaky pipe that was rotting the floor joists, growing mold up above it in the bathroom and sopping the basement floor with it's continual dripping.

Now, I hate to succumb to the "I told you so" mentality that often befalls those of us that "Told them so" but when "they" didn't listen and then it turns up that "I told you so" was right... well, the only thing you can say is, "I told you so."

What makes me refer to this is that prior to calling the plumber and prior to the plumber getting to our house and prior to finding mold in the bathroom, I had mentioned to the man of the house that perhaps he should just double check and make sure this wasn't a homeowner repair job. Toby had already decided on that and thought it would be wise to personally investigate the leak because you know how a person hates to pay an unnecessary plumbing bill, right?

My dear, brave husband checked it out one day and diagnosed the problem as an Overspilling Copper Dilemma (OCD). Considering he does not have the tools for OCD (such as a torch and other copper repairing tools), he deemed the plumber invasion a wise idea.

"You know how I am with plumbing, honey," he said. To which I calculated in my head: Toby + Plumbing = Disaster. This mental picture had built so vividly above my head that Toby could see it too so I had to immediately delete that explicit picture and say, "Leaky Roofs + Toby = Paradise." He breathed a sigh of relief to know that I am still the cheerleader for the team he's on.

Bob the Plumber is a really nice guy. He really is. Once he took pity on me and our snake filled yard and he told me how he had hit a snake with his own lawn mower and never had snakes in his yard again. I took his advice. It worked. This guy knows his stuff. And Thursday was no exception.

He had a truck full of copper fittings and copper pipes and copper this and copper that so he was ready. Entering the house armed with a flashlight, he went right downstairs to the problem. Within no time, he was upstairs and in the bathroom.

His diagnosis?

Well, you know that pipe-tube-thingy that attaches your toilet to the water supply right behind the toilet? Yeah, go look in your bathroom and you'll see what I mean. That gray/silver (depending on the year it was made) pipe-tube-thingy had malfunctioned. So as the water entered the toilet, some of it slipped out and ran down the OUTSIDE of the tube-pipe-thingy and followed down through the narrow hole in the floor drilled just for accommodating that tube-pipe-thingy and then it dripped downstairs into our Bucket Invention right past that OCD copper pipe.

The repair plan?

Unscrew the tube-pipe-thingy
Toss in bathroom trash can
Screw in new tube-pipe-thingy
And then empty that bucket in the basement one last time.

I looked at Toby and smirked smiled gleefully lovingly but didn't say a thing. I could tell what he was thinking.

The mold is gone. The basement is dry. The pipe-tube-thingy gleams a bright shiny silver behind the toilet. So pretty. It feels good to have such a modern upgrade in our old house.

What To Do With A To-Do List

As if to play a part in an ongoing brigade of change and decay going on around here, our van has turned a gear and decided to add itself to our growing list of things to fix. The thing with that list though is the only thing that ever changes on it, is the addition of more items. Unfortunately, that list seems to not have a "cross off" feature on it.

Well, at least it feels like it somedays.

First it was the basement. When it rained, the rain gauge outside was the exact same as the rain gauge in our basement. Funny, huh? So we got smart and made sure all our storage items were in rubber maid bins or on top of rubbermaid bins. Fix the leak, I can hear you say but really, why go to the bother as long as you store nothing in card board?

So, my husband got smart. He researched leaky basements. And he found the perfect remedy: a a paint-like texture that once applied to the walls turns into a rubber-like substance which results in a complete water proof barrier. We could drop our house in the middle of a massive swimming pool and not get a drop of water inside. Sweet stuff.

I'm sure this stuff will do the trick eventually. The reviews were incredibly promising. Funny thing is that it just doesn't seem to work no matter how long we store it in buckets down in the basement. State-of-the-art repair man, that hubby is. (Actually, he really is when he has a little of that thing called "time." Ever heard of it? We sure haven't lately.)

But, riding even higher on our to-do list was the perpetual problems going on in our one and only precious bathroom. Talk about turn-of-the-century accomodations. Only, this was at least a century behind in function and performance.

For starters, the faucet leaked. No, not the drain; the faucet. We came up with an excellent solution. By positioning a container to collect dripping water under the sink, we aspired to repair the situation by just dealing with it in a very cost effective manner. The container would fill with water and then be poured out and then be put back under the leaky faucet. Great idea, I'm sure but we never were able to figure out where to put the container. The drips were inconsistent and sporadic and seemed to drop wherever the container wasn't.

At this point we realized why there was a hastily written handnote duct taped to the bathroom sink when we bought this house last spring: DO NOT USE SINK. (Tip ---> if your real estate company offers free plumbing inspections, accept them at any cost. Really.)

As if the leaky faucet wasn't bad enough, the drain volunteered its membership on our to-do list. It just completely quit working. If you couldn't remember if you had brushed your teeth that morning, you had at least until bedtime to check the bathroom sink for frothy toothpaste. Add shaving results and shaving cream to the frothy water and top it off with sudsy soap and by the end of the day you had quite the chemical reaction going on in the sink.

Yet, above all, the most inconvenient part of our bathroom was the shower. The faucet part where the water comes out was loose and rickety. If you pulled on it at all, you could see the pipe behind it. The stopper that you pull up on in order to activate the shower had completely malfunctioned. So, you technically couldn't take a shower but you also couldn't take a bath either because the plug for the drain was like a bath timer: you only had minutes to enjoy a full tub and suddenly, your dreamy bath soak turned into a shallow drought.

Embarking on a new career, my so-not-a-plumber-husband assured me he could fix it all. What man doesn't wish to rescue a damsel in distress, especially if that distressing damsel happens to be his wife?

So, that's when he got the bright idea about the container under the sink that fixed the leaky faucet. As for the anti-drain drain, he bravely picked it and pulled globs of slimy hair out. (what a hero!) And when it came to the malfunctioning shower, he turned to his roots (carpentry) and brought in a small load of wood. Yes, wood. With the skill of a brain surgeon, he strategically crammed several pieces of wood shims up into the faucet resulting in a permanent shower setting in our bath tub. This setting worked but the water pressure was pretty low because half of the water came out the faucet through the shim dam and the other half sprayed haphazardly out of the shower head. It took a whole hot water heater full to fully rinse your hair.

I'm not married to a plumber. And in case you didn't catch that I'll repeat: I'm not married to a plumber. Toby can fix about anything but that anything doesn't include plumbing or cars.

And just yesterday he informed me that the van's transmission is going out. But, I can't entirely believe him because just a few months ago he assumed something tragic had happened with our outdoor spigot of the home we were selling. So, for once he called the plumber. (Smart thinking.) Only problem was that the spigot had no problem: it merely needed the shut-off valve turned to on. That's why for him to conclude out of the clear blue that the van needs a new transmission, I'll not hold my breath until a real mechanic looks at it. Who knows? If the van is anything like the shut-off valve at our old house, the van could just need the oil changed.

Sweetly enough though, while we took our latest trip to visit my folks, Toby arranged for a plumber to come and totally repair our bathroom in our absence. I knew nothing of the arrangement either. I was more than just a little surprised and elated when we came home and found a modern bathroom in place of the previously dilapidated accommodations.

As a double feature, we not only get to enjoy our new bathroom but we also get to experience the thrill of crossing something off The List. Unfortunately, those slots on our List have already filled up and overflowed but at least we can enjoy a good shower in the mean time.