I Hate Plumbing

Not too long ago, I recounted the tale of a difficult weekend.

On Monday I was breathing a sigh of relief to be shut of it.

Little did I know what level of Dante’s Inferno I’d be touring the very next weekend.

I think it began when I announced plans for a family excursion to see the annual Starlight Parade in Portland. These words, upon leaving my lips, passed through the aether and began to resonate deep in the interstices of time and space, where it then created a focused beam of adversity aimed directly at the most critical spot in our home’s plumbing system.

Before I go on, I must remind you that I hate plumbing problems. I don’t mind electrical wiring problems, structural problems or heating/air conditioning problems. Those are easy to deal with.

Plumbing is different. Plumbing is a way of routing water under pressure, and if not dealt with quickly and correctly will cause loss of resources, great amounts of wetness, pervasive and very expensive wood damage and significant reduction in dignity. This is why in every corner of our house there currently thrives some minor plumbing annoyance, from running toilets to an intermittent refrigerator water dispenser, a completely inoperable hot water tap and a defunct hot tub.

So, this one Saturday morning, I brought Michael outside to do some bike riding. It was time to take off his training wheels and see what he could do on two wheels. He actually got four seconds of riding time without my holding on to him! Pretty cool. On the way down the driveway, he asked me why the sidewalk was all wet.

“Probably the neighbors watering,” I said, and gave it no further thought.

Later, when my wife came home from errands, she asked me why the sidewalk was wet, and whether it was coming from our yard.

This time I went outside to give it a good look.

Sure enough, the water that was saturating the sidewalk was merrily bubbling up from our yard. Specifically, from the water meter. I pulled up the cover and saw a murky brown ocean.

No problem, I thought, call the water department.

They sent a guy around in under twenty minutes. He pumped out the meter well and took a look around.

“Yeah, it’s the fitting on the street elbow,” he said.

“And now you’re going to tell me it’s an easy fix and it won’t be expensive, right?” I asked, optimistically.

“Oh, yeah. It’s a simple job. All you have to do is-“

I sort of hung on that phrase there: “all you have to do is”

And by “you” he meant the poor shmuck who owns the house, who hates plumbing, and who had plans that day.

I asked him to repeat himself, so he described again the “very simple” process of removing the street elbow, cutting the reducer coupling off of the main line and replacing it with PVC adapters.

“It’ll take you half an hour and cost three bucks.”

My wife and I looked at each other, knowing full well both figures were way off.

As the water department dude drove off, she went and got the camera while I went to fetch the shovel.
My eldest daughter, having discovered that there was no water pressure in the house, came out to investigate. She wanted a shower, and said she was willing to work for it.

Yes, she has no qualms against performing manual labor barefoot and in pajamas.

And of course it’s necessary to dig out the concrete box surrounding the meter just to get to the pipes.

I’ll be needing a manicure after this.

Say a prayer. I’m cutting the water main.

Here’s the culprit. A leaky street elbow and reducer coupling.

So off to Home Depot I went, taking eldest daughter with me. She was gracious enough to put on some daytime attire before we left.

Okay – I got parts and teflon plumber’s tape. And a water pump. And a new PVC cutter. And some PVC cement. Let’s see… so far we’re up to $42.51. So much for the cheery estimate I got from the water company rep.

Now, I know how to cut PVC, and I know how to apply PVC cement. And I know that once you put the cement-coated pieces together, they ain’t coming apart: no way, no how. So it’s important to get it done right the first time.

Missed it by that much. Okay, okay, so I blew it the first time. I can get more connectors, they’re not too expensive.

Off to Home Depot I went, for the second time. Running total is now up to $48.69.

This time, I dry-fit the pieces and make SURE they’re the right length before I cemented them together. No more crude eyeball measurements.

Yeah.

Interesting fact: when you coat PVC with cement, the pieces fit together a lot closer than when you dry fit them, making it really easy to misjudge (again) how long your connector assembly is. I have learned something. Something I’ll only need to recall when I am forced to do plumbing work. Something I’ll no doubt forget long before the time I need to recall it.

I had made two attempts to get our home’s water main reconnected and had blown them both.

At this point, I had a hyperventilating, mouth-frothing panic attack became somewhat discouraged. I wasn’t sure if I could actually make this work. It was critical that our house has water, and my repeated screw-ups were causing us to run out of workable pipe length. Pretty soon I’d have to call in a back hoe and/or a fleet of professionals.

My wife, the soul of support, offered a suggestion:

“You need a beer.”

“It’s only noon,” I said, in mild protest. “Besides, I have to go get more parts.”

“I’ll go get them,” she said. “You need to relax.” She took the first connector set with her and sped off to the hardware store.

I hate plumbing.

Soon my wife was back, handing me the new parts. She bought two sets. Smart woman.

“Did you drink that beer?” she asked me.

“No…”

She heaved a sigh and marched into the house to get one.

After she came back out and forced me to relax, she offered a suggestion:

“You know, inside that coupling there’s a little ridge that lets you know how far the pipe goes in. How about you measure how far inside that ridge is, and use that to figure out how long the connecting pipe should be?”

“That’s a really smart idea,” I said.

With that in mind, I carefully measured all the distances and lengths involved in the connection from the water main to the meter.

I made the cuts, cemented the pieces and fit them together.

Not exactly perfect, but serviceable and solid.

Time to apply water pressure.

No leaks. Hallelujah!

Back goes the box, dirt and surrounding rocks.

After five hours and fifty-three some odd dollars, the problem was resolved. Don’t mistake this pose for relaxation. What you’re seeing is exhaustion.

And even after two weeks, I still have nightmares.

I hate plumbing.

note: the pictures you didn’t get to see were the ones where wife and daughter took their turns fitting and tightening the connectors. There were threats involved.