May 8, 1991
Dear Everyone:
Adventures
in plumbing!
I finally decided last weekend to do something
about the drip in the bathroom faucet. Not
that it was anything serious; just a little drip . But in this day (and
area) of water rationing, it is considered PC** to avoid wasting any
drops of H2O.
In my opinion, some people go to extremes.
Such as saving the bath water and
then ladling it, bucket by bucket, into the washing machine to do the
laundry. Or catching the shower
water in a bucket until the shower turns hot, then using the “cool”
water to water your lawn.
I can just see myself trying that one.
A) place a bucket in the shower. (A–1 first, find a bucket).
B) turn on the shower.
Probably misses the bucket.
Repositioned bucket.
Try again.
C)
Shower water is now “hot”. Turnoff
shower. Wrestle full bucket out
of shower, probably spilling half the water onto the floor.
Place towels on floor to mop up
spilled water. D) get into
shower. By now the “hot” water in
the pipes has cooled, so let shower run until water gets hot again.
E) Take shower, turning water off
except for rinsing. Get soap in
your eyes. F) Finish shower. Step
out of shower, knocking over bucket, which you forgot about. G)
Discover all the towels are now
on the floor mopping up the water you “saved”.
Not only would I end up using more water to wash
all the towels, but I don't have a lawn to water.
And all of my plants are silk.
So I compromise: I
turned the shower down to a trickle except for rinsing and I don't wash
my silk plants. Still, there's
the matter of the dripping faucet, which
can waste over a gallon a
day.
This annoying little drip has been around for quite
some time. A couple of years ago,
I bought The Magic Book (with its Mystic Title,
The Complete
Fix-It-Yourself-Manual) to deal with the problem.
At first, The Magic Book worked
just fine: All I had to do was
get it out and look up “Plumbing”, and the drip would stop for a while.
This works along the same
principle as the funny-noise-under-the hood that stops as soon as the
mechanic gets near the car, or the kid who says “it doesn't hurt
anymore” as soon as Mom suggests going to see the doctor.
Furthermore, the drip operated on a specific time
schedule. It only dripped
during the week, never on the weekend.
During the week, I don't have
time to deal with drips. On the
weekend, the drip cures itself. Same
as “Can't fix the roof when it's raining and, when it don't rain, the
roof don't leak."
Nevertheless, I decided last weekend to fix the
drip, if I could. I got out The
Magic Book and looked up “Plumbing”. Much detailed explanations, but
I've noticed something about these
Complete... Manuals.
They have assumptions built into
them.
Take the
Complete Sewing Guide. It
tells you how to cut out patterns, but
assumes you know how to
handle a pair of scissors. How to
sew a certain type of stitch, but
assumes you know how to thread a needle.
The Complete
Fix-It-Yourself-Manual (Plumbing Section)
assumes you know how to shut
off the water. It tells you
where to look for the
“shut-off valve”, but it doesn't tell you quite what to do with it.
I found the shut-off valve easily enough; it's under the sink,
inside the cabinet (Step 1, clear everything out of the cabinet.
Now you know why I left this
until I could have plenty of
time.)
I even figured out which shut-off valve controlled
the hot water, by the simple expedient of running the hot water and then
feeling the pipes to see which one was hot.
But I couldn't figure out how to
turn it off. You'd think it would
be the same as the faucet handle; turn clockwise to shut off.
But that didn't work. So I tried
the other way. But that
didn’t work either.
I considered calling my father at this point and
complaining bitterly about idiots who write Fix-It-Yourself Manuals, but
decided against it. I’m
independent. I can do this.
Besides, he’d probably be playing golf right now anyway.
I tried clockwise again.
This time, the valve moved a
little further. I crossed my
fingers (figuratively speaking) and turned it as hard as I could.
The way the pipe moved away from
the wall made me very
nervous, but the valve finally did shut off.
In retrospect (20/20 hindsight),
a shot of WD-40 might have been useful here.
Step one out of the way, I could continue with the
Complete Fix-It-Yourself
instructions: Taking off the
faucet handle. This was easy and
it turned out that I actually do
own a wrench. The next step
called for unscrewing the whatsis according to the
C F-I-Y Manual, the repair
called for replacing the little rubber doohickey at the bottom of the
whatsis. But you had to replace
it with exactly the same
doohickey, or it wouldn't work
So I wrapped the whatsis (sometimes called a
“stem”) in plastic, put it in my pocket and drove to the hardware store
where the nice person in information sent me to I'll 30 (plumbing) and
Chris and Keith argued over which doohickey was just the
right doohickey for my
whatsis. Keith asked me what
kind of faucet the whatsis had come out of.
“Bathroom”, I replied.
I got the feeling this wasn't the
answer he was looking for. Then I
pointed to the wall, where the words “Price-Pfister” were displayed. “It
says that on the front of the faucet”. This
seemed to help.
He reached, almost at random, and pull down a
package of doohickeys, dug the old doohickey out of my whatsis with a
pair of scissors and put the new doohickey in where it fit perfectly.
Then he gave me the package
(these doohickeys travel in pairs) along with my old doohickey and it
only cost me $2.13, including tax. Hey!
A plumber would charge more than
that just come to your front door.
I took my whatsis home and reinstalled it in the
faucet, taking the opportunity to clean the faucet handle as long as it
was off. Battened down the
hatches, turn the shut off valve back on and tried it.
It worked! No
more drip!
Flushed with success, I even replaced the doohickey
on the cold water handle. Then I
save the old doohickeys in case I ever have to do this again.
That way I'll know which ones to
get the next time.
Today, the faucets... Tomorrow, well, let's not get
carried away.
Love, as always,
Pete
**Politically Correct
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