Posted on 01/20/2015 10:10:02 AM PST by Osage Orange
Well.....Im not the sharpest toothpick...but I do have a degree.
Thus said....I'm a man. So....I have a lot of excuses.
Last week.....I had a water pipe leaking a bit underneath my home. Being the ultimate optimist..or just wishing it would go away..I waited a day or two..before taking action.
I was loathing crawling underneath my house...ONCE again. Oh....I've enough money to pay for that type of thing...but I'm smarter than that!! : ) My father taught me how to do many things...work on cars, work on plumbing..digging ditches, sweeping the damn garage.......ummm...sorry..I digress.
So....I've plumbed real crappy jobs...( sewer pipe...) cut and threaded galvanized...soldered copper, glued PVC, etc....so I CAN do it...but I aint jumping up and down about DOING it...under my DAMN house!!
But, because I'm smarter than the professional plumbers....I decide I can't avoid the problem any longer..after my neighbor's a 1/2 mile away tell me...there's a new pond in my pasture. Well....at least I'm creating some wetlands.
Anyway...I grab some duct tape...and crawl under the house. I find the problem...and after much thought...I deduce duct tape won't fix it. Dammit!!
I go to the local supply place....looking like a swamp man after a tussel with a gator....The owner eyes me up and down..and says we need a picture!! Bass Turd!!
Well I tell him what the problem is...and he proceeds to take me to some fittings and some piping called PEX that he says will/can/might fix the problem. I'm standing there...dirty, muddy, smelly..looking at fittings I've NEVER ever seen before!! WHAT the HELL are these I ask?
Why these are the new going thing...SharkBite plumbing fittings he says!! I'm totally NOT believing these fittings can work.....I need solder, I need glue, teflon tape!! He assures me...these fitting work. I'm thinking BS!!
But of course..I'm a man and I buy what he thinks I need.....all the time telling myself I'm an idiot..for believing him.
So I get home.....suck it up and crawl into hell again......with my pipe cutter, flex pvc cutter, and the fittings. Once underneath....I figure it out...cut what I need to couple some things together...push some fittings together...and bingo...I'm done. Thinking all the time this was too freaking easy!!
I crawl back 20 yds to the light.....turn the water on..and my meter isn't spinning like the USA debt meter...!! YEAH!!!...I fixed that puppy with the wierdest fittings I've ever seen!! My chest is puffed out...and hearing "Feeling Good" in my head!!
Five hours later at 2200.....I hear the water leaking again...W^$%&*!!!FH[[$$H!!! I KNEW it!! I should have duct taped everything!!! And not trusted these dumb ass fittings!!!!
As I am too old for this crap..and loath going under there again....I succumb, throw in the towel, fold, give up..etc. I call a plumber. But they can't come that day or the next...but maybe the day after that!!! My fate is determined.......I'm screwed.
I go back to the supply place.........I tell him...I have a leak again...sounds like the same place. I ask about fail rate on these @%^#$&$% fittings.....he say's it not high at all....OF course I'm SO HAPPY about crawling under there again!!!
I turn the water on about 1/4....so I can see where it's leaking. I crawl into hell again....skinny over 20 yards AGAIN to the leak...and yeah..it's spraying everywhere right out of one of them awesome %#$^$%&%!! fittings!!!! I start just making sure...they are all pushed tight...and lo and behold...one cliks together deeper...and the leaking stops outright!!!! IT"S A MIRACLE!!!
I crawl out....strip on my patio..go into my house naked...and take a shower. Thinking...hoping..that's it!!
Next day...I have to go to my Fri, Sat, Sun job......It's 0415 I'm in the shower...I notice a bump on my lower left front quadrant...Don't think much of it....
By the end of day...it's a sore bump..with some red around it. But the good thing is.....I'm an AWESOME PLUMBER...no leak!!!!
I wake up Sat morning. and it hurts to touch it...like touching it with a hot match!! . Got a little black dotting in the middle of the bump..and the red is bigger!! GOOD GOD!!! I think I got bit by a Brown Recluse!!! At least I'm figuring that was it!!! I look up all the info I can on Recluse bites...and start monitoring my symptoms....
It hurt to touch it...but I'm feeling okay. No other symtoms....I'm icing it..and taking some Tylenol. BUT AT LEAST I CAN STILL PLUMB!!!! NO LEAK!!!
That night I sleep okay..Sunday morning....it's worse!!!! Hurts way, way worse..bigger red...so I'm thinking...OMG it's going to necrose into my gut...down to my manhood..and I'm going to die!!!!!!
But...I don't have any other symptoms!!! I suck it up and go to work...because I'm a man, DAMMIT!!! I ice it down a couple / four times...and it finally doesn't look as tense and angry.....and by the end of the day...it's soft..and drained a bit. I'm GOING TO LIVE!!!!!!
I get home...and pop a beer. No water leak!!! AWESOME!!!
Life is GOOD!!!!!
Then notice the AIR isn't working!!!! WTH!?!?!?!?!?
Damn good thing.... I NO NOTHING about air conditioning.
And I'm not fried!! Ha!!
Knowing what you don’t know is a good plan for a long and healthy life... [”A man’s got to know his limitations.”]
Glad you’re back in business and not crispy...
Now that I’m an old guy, I’ve learned something.
Whatever I plan to do ends up costing twice as much as I figured and it takes three times as long to accomplish.
I've roofed a whole house by myself...Painted a whole house, replaced windows, window sills, etc...etc....
Laid sewer pipe....Built fence...barbed and wooden.
Replaced power steering pumps, brake calipers, vacuum pumps...rotors, radiators, etc..etc....
Done more than I can remember.....Ha!!
Ain't it fun!!
What?
Really smart....not real smart.
PEX and SharkBite fittings are awesome!!
PEX is good stuff. When you get accustomed to working with it, it’s much faster to install. It doesn’t break so easily when frozen.
And no pipe machines required (for those of us who’ve fixed some really old plumbing).
Hubby is quite handy. Usually takes him several trips to the store before he has all the parts, but he gets the job done. When he got laid off last year, he asked me to give him a honey-do list, so I obliged. He looked over the list and told me all the tasks are “two person jobs,” and he’s going to need me to schedule a time when I can help him do them. Every man I’ve told this to says he wishes he had thought of that. The guys I work with think Hubby is a genius.
Louis Ferdinand Celine was a major author of the 20th century.
He used a style that employed three dots to separate sentences or thoughts.
Your piece was written in the same way.
I thought maybe you’d read him and were using the same style.
JB Weld...
I've used manual threaders and electric too.....
Still have many dies for my manual threader....Have not used that in years. Cut and threaded a lot of black pipe and galvanized back many years ago....
Yep....I've owned some older homes!! HA!!!
That’s what landlords are for. Luckily, mine is interested in keeping up his property. He also takes care of his tenants. I’m crippled and can’t do a lot around the house. After one ice storm, I awoke to the sound of chain saws in my back yard. It was my landlord with a whole team of men and boys clearing the fallen branches.
He said he’d come by to make sure my power was still on and saw the tree damage. Then he apologized for waking me up!
Nowadays in addition to duct tape you should keep a can of that spray stuff that seals leaks.
I used to hate crawling under the house when I was a teenager to help my dad fix broken pipes. They always seem to break only when it was cold. And then crawling around on the cold, wet ground just made it worse.
My two cents: I learned how to work with PEX after we bought our current house here in Florida. Previously, I spent a lot of time doing all things copper in all the other places I’ve lived. I put off learning plastics because I remembered when they had so many problems with bursting plastic pipes in the 70’s & 80’s. I read up on PEX and learned how long it lasts (up to 50 years) and how the acidic water here in Florida corrodes copper pipes in 7 to 8 years. I have to say, I love the stuff. It is easy work with, flexible and very forgiving on measurements compared to copper. Jobs go much more quickly. Cutting, trimming, & joining (all you need is a knife and a crimping tool) -— no sweating joints in difficult to reach places where you have to worry about burning your house down. Great stuff!
It's just me...I guess.
Making me self conscious now....Ha!!!
as Red Green said “Keep your stick on the ice” and as Jack Horkheimer always said “Keep looking up”
:p
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