Steak or Toilets?
I was supposed to be treated to a birthday dinner at an excellent steakhouse. The house decided to bust the water main instead. So I thought, steak or water? Steak or bathing? Steak or flushing toilets? I like steak, but apparently I love flushing toilets more.
In the first photo, the "work area" (my kitchen counter top) shows the original water supply pipe fitting, made by Dad years ago from various materials, along with the new, bright, gluey replacement fittings.
You should have seen the look on the face of the guy at Home Depot when I showed it to him. It's gray-black pipe from outside, then a flange of gray plastic that gets pipe-clamped on, then galvanized pipe, then brass (solid corroded rust), then a brass shutoff valve, then CPVC that supplied the hot and cold water to the whole house. The valve corroded, and the handle part BLEW OFF. We found it a couple of feet away.
Here is where the ugly old thing used to fit in. See the gap between the dangling CPVC and the greyish pipe on the dirt? The view is down the trapdoor to the crawl space, which is dirt floored. When I found I had no water pressure, I thought the fuse to the pump had blown. After checking the breaker box, I stood in the back hallway and noticed the sound of a rapidly flowing brook. A burbling stream. A rushing rapids. When I opened the trap door, the whole of my water supply was being blasted out and up against the underside of the kitchen subfloor and the foundation. It had already eroded much of the dirt "landing", and the water was cascading down to the deeper part where the hot water heater lives.
At Home Depot #1, we spent about 45 minutes on the floor in front of the pipe fittings, trying to put together something that would work. Why do they run out of basic fittings like elbows??? We chose some things that MIGHT work, and left.
We drove to Home Depot #2, only a mile away (long story) and lucked out! The guy in the plumbing aisle asked if we needed help right away, and went and got guy #2, who was a plumber! Shock! And he put together the set of fittings that we eventually used. He apologized for not having the ideal set of fittings, because they were out of something, but he was able to use some PVC in the middle to make up for what ever was lacking. He gave me really good instructions about what to glue up to what, in which order, and even got me a scrap of PVC pipe that was needed to mate up the two PVC fittings, NO CHARGE. (I had no PVC on hand at home, just CPVC.) He also picked out the right glue, asked if I had teflon tape (for the compression fittings).
Wait a minute... we had two guys help us in less that a minute at store #2, and how many people offered to help us at Home Depot #1??......NONE in 45 minutes of sitting on the floor, looking desperate!
Anyway, here is the finished assembled mess. It isn't pretty (our gluing technique leaves room for improvement), but the bugger DOES NOT LEAK!! The best part? I didn't have to go down into the crawl space myself. My dear boyfriend gallantly donned Wellington boots, and took the muddy plunge. I really hate the crawlspace!
In non house related stuff, I made a fake ham for a play, and went to the state fair. I lead such an exciting life!
The fake ham is for a drama where dinner is served at one point. The director said "I want them to be served a baked ham". That is such an easy thing to say, but a fake ham, with slices is hard to find.
The ham itself is made of blue foam insulation. Carved with my trusty old steak knife (used only for carving). The "ham slices" were more difficult to deal with. I ended up gluing three layers of "fun foam" from the craft store together to get a thinnish slice of ham. I base painted everything with Zinsser's 123, and the next day I painted them with Liquitex acrylics. The main ham is sealed with a gloss medium, to make it look glazed. I glued on real cloves. The ham is bee-yooteeful. I hope it makes it through the run of the play without getting too damaged.
Also, last weekend I got to go to the state fair. I had a great time. Boyfriend and I don't go for the scary rides. We are too old. But they are fun to watch. And there is so much awful and good food to eat at the fair!
They have horse racing on the weekends. I've never been to the racetrack, though I watch on TV. We are not the gambling type, so we just watched so I could look at horseys. I loves watchin horseys. They seem to like me back - this one tossed his head for the picture. He didn't win. But he was the cutest!
Best day of the summer.
In the first photo, the "work area" (my kitchen counter top) shows the original water supply pipe fitting, made by Dad years ago from various materials, along with the new, bright, gluey replacement fittings.
You should have seen the look on the face of the guy at Home Depot when I showed it to him. It's gray-black pipe from outside, then a flange of gray plastic that gets pipe-clamped on, then galvanized pipe, then brass (solid corroded rust), then a brass shutoff valve, then CPVC that supplied the hot and cold water to the whole house. The valve corroded, and the handle part BLEW OFF. We found it a couple of feet away.
Here is where the ugly old thing used to fit in. See the gap between the dangling CPVC and the greyish pipe on the dirt? The view is down the trapdoor to the crawl space, which is dirt floored. When I found I had no water pressure, I thought the fuse to the pump had blown. After checking the breaker box, I stood in the back hallway and noticed the sound of a rapidly flowing brook. A burbling stream. A rushing rapids. When I opened the trap door, the whole of my water supply was being blasted out and up against the underside of the kitchen subfloor and the foundation. It had already eroded much of the dirt "landing", and the water was cascading down to the deeper part where the hot water heater lives.
At Home Depot #1, we spent about 45 minutes on the floor in front of the pipe fittings, trying to put together something that would work. Why do they run out of basic fittings like elbows??? We chose some things that MIGHT work, and left.
We drove to Home Depot #2, only a mile away (long story) and lucked out! The guy in the plumbing aisle asked if we needed help right away, and went and got guy #2, who was a plumber! Shock! And he put together the set of fittings that we eventually used. He apologized for not having the ideal set of fittings, because they were out of something, but he was able to use some PVC in the middle to make up for what ever was lacking. He gave me really good instructions about what to glue up to what, in which order, and even got me a scrap of PVC pipe that was needed to mate up the two PVC fittings, NO CHARGE. (I had no PVC on hand at home, just CPVC.) He also picked out the right glue, asked if I had teflon tape (for the compression fittings).
Wait a minute... we had two guys help us in less that a minute at store #2, and how many people offered to help us at Home Depot #1??......NONE in 45 minutes of sitting on the floor, looking desperate!
Anyway, here is the finished assembled mess. It isn't pretty (our gluing technique leaves room for improvement), but the bugger DOES NOT LEAK!! The best part? I didn't have to go down into the crawl space myself. My dear boyfriend gallantly donned Wellington boots, and took the muddy plunge. I really hate the crawlspace!
In non house related stuff, I made a fake ham for a play, and went to the state fair. I lead such an exciting life!
The fake ham is for a drama where dinner is served at one point. The director said "I want them to be served a baked ham". That is such an easy thing to say, but a fake ham, with slices is hard to find.
The ham itself is made of blue foam insulation. Carved with my trusty old steak knife (used only for carving). The "ham slices" were more difficult to deal with. I ended up gluing three layers of "fun foam" from the craft store together to get a thinnish slice of ham. I base painted everything with Zinsser's 123, and the next day I painted them with Liquitex acrylics. The main ham is sealed with a gloss medium, to make it look glazed. I glued on real cloves. The ham is bee-yooteeful. I hope it makes it through the run of the play without getting too damaged.
Also, last weekend I got to go to the state fair. I had a great time. Boyfriend and I don't go for the scary rides. We are too old. But they are fun to watch. And there is so much awful and good food to eat at the fair!
They have horse racing on the weekends. I've never been to the racetrack, though I watch on TV. We are not the gambling type, so we just watched so I could look at horseys. I loves watchin horseys. They seem to like me back - this one tossed his head for the picture. He didn't win. But he was the cutest!
Best day of the summer.
Labels: ham, horseys, leaking pipe
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