Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Rain in the kitchen

So I was rinsing out the fabric softener bottle up in the un-used waiting for gutting and renovation master bath shower earlier today. I shut off the faucet, and drip drip drip....I figure it's just emptying, and go back to my day. I wander back upstairs later and hear water running....it's the shower. A little trickle has formed where the drip was. Fine. I set a bucket under it to catch the water because the shower leaks badly from the bottom and try to tighten the faucets off...no luck.
No problem...I'll just tighten the faucet screw. I pop off the "c" medallion,and try to tighten the badly stripped screw...no luck.
Okay...I'll just take off the faucet and tighten it from behind with the pliers. This results in the water turning on at full force, and the badly stripped screw won't let me tighten it any more.
Crap.
I get a second bucket, dump the first into the toilet and call my plumber...Daddy.
He assures me he'll come by after work and cap it off, and to just shut off the water main in the meantime.
Okay.
Then he says...."Why don't you start taking apart the shower too since it's going to come out anyway, that will make it easier to get to it."
Demolition?
Hell Yeah.
So water off, I get the drill and drill out the stripped screw, remove the faucets and proceed to rip out the entire shower.
It was very cathartic.
I crumple the aluminum frame and fold the fiberglass walls into a somewhat manageable 7x3 foot rectangle and throw it off the 2nd floor porch into the side yard.
And now that I'm a bad ass I go back to take stock of the situation.

I re-route the washing Machine plumbing to the shower's cold water side, disconnect and where it was connected and over-confidently ignore many key points of interest. I stride aaalll the way down to the basement (bearing in mind I was on the 2nd floor) and turn on the water.

Hmmmm....the water meter is spinning awfully fast. Maybe it's just refilling the house pipes. I'll give it a minute.
Weird. Is the hose on? I feel the pipe above the shut-off shut off to the hose...noooo....
Wait...what's that dripping?
I go up to the 1st floor....
It is raining in the kitchen.
RAINING through the drop ceiling all over the floor and countertops.

I run back down, shut off the water, run to the 1st floor guest bathroom, grab the towels and throw them at Clara6 and Henry4 to mop up the kitchen and run upstairs (huh huh huh) to see what I did wrong.

Yeah. I didn't cap off or close off the hot water from the shower.
Dufuss.

Sooo, a $17 trip to the hardware store on our bikes (with a stop at the taco place on the way home) I have (I hope) fixed my plumbing.
I get to turn back on the water after the pipe glue cures in another hour...get your umbrellas.

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