Always the odd ball, I like plumbing. It has gotten a bit harder to solder since they have done away with led in the solder but I can still sweat a pipe together.
For those that don't like risking a fire in the house, they now make a solderless compound for copper pipes. It is much like the C A form of epoxy I use to build golf clubs with. It comes in a can and you brush it on like the stuff used with PVC. Great idea for places where a torch is dangerous. I'll find the link and send it along later. ----- Original Message ----- From: David Ferrin To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 1:45 PM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] I hate plumbing! The question is who if anybody likes plumbing actually. Oh the joys of owning a home. David Ferrin www.jaws-users.com ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Rossi To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 1:39 PM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] I hate plumbing! This weekend was spent in battle with the pipes. The war was waged on two fronts, the kitchen faucet, and an unused toilet in the basement. the faucet had the upper hand for a while, but it now lays in many pieces at the bottom of my trash. Score one for the blind guy! This was an old faucet with three separate mountings, one each for the two taps, and one for the faucet itself. I spent a lot of time under the sink with the mother of all basin wrenches trying to get the nuts off the taps to no avail. I tried taking them out from above, but there was no way to grab onto the little collars, which also happened to be puttied to the sink surface. Much to Teresa's dismay, I, screaming that I would exact my vengeance on the faucet, ran to the basement and retrieved my Dremel. Several broken cutting disks later, after much prying, cursing and snarling, the taps and faucet were removed from the sink and the sink surface was not marred from the Dremel. Of course, after I slid the new faucet in place, the flex tubes attached to the faucet were not long enough to reach the shut-offs under the sink. That meant, not surprisingly, another trip to the store, but that had to wait until Sunday. Sunday morning I took a closer look at the toilet in the basement. This is a cruddy old toilet stuck in the corner of the basement with a plywood wall on none side and a partial plywood door. These are very common in Pittsburgh. The guts of the tank were completely rusted and broken and since the shut-off to the toilet didn't actually shut the water off, there had been a paint can wedged into the tank to keep the fill valve closed. I had upgraded the paint can to a 20 pound dumbell but figured I should probably fix the shut-off and take care of the tank guts while I was at it. Off to the store. We found some flexible tubes to extend the faucet lines and I installed them as soon as we got home. Had a lot of trouble getting the sprayer attachment threaded onto the under-side of the faucet, but Teresa eventually got her hands in there and got it tightened down. New faucet, with a single handle, works fine, of course, the brand new, $108 faucet has an itty bitty drip. Back down to the basement to lead the attack on the toilet. Turns out that the water connection to the tank was pretty clugy. Check this out, step by step: Long Copper pipe literally hangs down from the ceiling joists, threaded fitting sweated onto end of Copper pipe, shut-off screwed onto fitting, short, threaded, black iron pipe screwed into shut-off, elbow screwed into black iron, horizontal copper sweated into elbow, elbow sweated into other end of horizontal Copper, Some kind of fitting, possibly compression, bodged onto elbow, finally into tank. I managed to get the shut-off replaced with a ball valve without too much trouble. I managed to get the guts of the tank changed with a lot of work, having to cut and tare out some of the old parts. I could not get the funky assembly described above to go back into the new tank connection without leaking rather impressively. So, we are at a draw at the moment, but I intend on replacing most of that assembly with a flexible hose. Nearly panicked when in an attempt to identify what branch of my house plumbing has a slow leak, I turned off a shut-off and it proceeded to gush water like a hose. I got the main valve for the house shut and messed around with the shut-off for a while and cranked it open again and it seems to be happy for the time being. I'm starting to contemplate replacing all my shut-offs with ball valves. Replacing everything with PEX actually sounds very good at the moment, although I think Teresa might hang me with the PEX if I attempt a job like that. Certainly not before the deck railings are done. I hate plumbing! -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (412) 268-9081 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
