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Plumbing adventure for your amusement

BillW | Posted in General Discussion on May 2, 2006 08:27am

Like everything I do, this started out simply.  My wife was away for a couple days so I thought I’d surprise her by painting the bathroom she had been bugging me about.  I got up Saturday morning, empty house, peace and quiet, and got to work.

As I prepped the bathroom, I thought about the corroded faucets and butt-ugly sink/countertop, made worse by the globs of epoxy on it, a result of my oldest daughter’s craft project a couple of Christmases ago (that’s a story for another time!)  Feeling ambitious, and thinking about how hard it is to paint around the countertop (ok, it seemd hard then … but seems so easy now …), I decided to expand the scope of work to remove and replace the sink and countertop.

I’m a reasonably competent DYIer but had never done this before, and hey, how hard can it be?  I shut off and disconnected the plumbing, and ran a razor around the countertop to loosen the caulk.  Lifting carefully, I could feel it move.  I ran the knife around some more to make sure I got the adhesive between the cabinet and countertop – it started to give more.  One good jerk, and the counter top was free.  What I failed to notice was that the drain had dropped back down into position, so when I yanked on it, I ripped the entire PVC drain assembly out – and of course, it broke off in the wall behind the cabinet.  (at this point it is fair to question my “reasonably competent” assertion).

Still undaunted, I knew I had to pull the cabinet and deal with the drain.  No problem.  I backed out the 4 screws holding it in place, and started to gently lift it out when I noticed that the shut-off handles were installed after the cabinet, so I’d have to remove those before proceeding.  Not having a screwdriver handy, I eyed my impact driver with a phillips bit sitting right there – I had just used it to back out those screws.  I put it on the end of the cold water valve, pulled the trigger and zzzip, the screw was out, the handle was off.  Full of confidence, I did the same on the hot water.

This time, as the screw backed out, the handle turned … ON … and several things happened at once:

1.  The water started shooting out full blast, straight up.

2.  The handle went flying

3.  My normally sluggish brain kicked into high gear, and thought “oh, crap, that was the hot water … this is gonna get painful in about 2 seconds”

4.  Did I mention that part of my paint prep involved removing the glass over the light fixtures?  And that there is no window in this bathroom?  The water spray hit the lightbulbs, and I was immediately plunged into darkness, all the better to enjoy my shower of hot water and broken glass.

So I grabbed the valve with one hand and tried to stem the flow (marginally successful) and groped around with the other until I miraculously found the handle, jammed it back on and shut off the water.

When I stopped laughing, toweled off and looked around, I found no permanent damage – in fact, I had quite effectively power-washed every inch of the room!  Everything dried out nicely while I finished removing the cabinet and fixed the drain line.  By Sunday, I had finished painting, installed the new sink (it really WAS simple), and called it a weekend.  Wife came home and had this to say:  “nice color”.

Just thought I’d share!

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Replies

  1. DoRight | May 02, 2006 08:34pm | #1

    Thanks for the amusment!  Even if you are a good fiction writer.  LOL! 

    I relate to the fact that remodeling is one of those this leads to this and then to that and tehn . . .  However, it ususally is that one problem leads to another thing that needs to be fixed which leads to another, and not typical for tragedy to lead to tragedy whihc leads to tragedy.  LOL!

  2. User avater
    BossHog | May 02, 2006 09:31pm | #2

    Sounds like something that would happen to me...

    (-:

    The size of the Federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern. [Ronald W. Reagan]
  3. FastEddie | May 02, 2006 10:17pm | #3

    It would have been a real bummer if she had not like the color.

     

     

    "When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it."  T. Roosevelt

  4. Danno | May 02, 2006 11:56pm | #4

    Sounds like something for the back page of FHB!

  5. DanT | May 03, 2006 12:30am | #5

    good one, I printed it out to share with the fellas! Dant

  6. peteduffy | May 03, 2006 01:37am | #6

    Never had anything like that happen to me. <g>

    Just ask my wife-all projects are half-hour jobs.

    Pete Duffy, Handyman

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