Have You Ever Known Something. . . .

Dan Mooney

Member
Messages
1,920
Location
Portland, Oregon
. . .and you never think about it until BANG! there it is right in your face?? That was me today as I was replacing my kitchen faucet, I remembered EXACTLY
why I am a bus driver and not a plumber! :D
 
View attachment 87374View attachment 87375Hi,

Call me Jim the Plumber. Not because I want to be but because I have tried 5 plumbers (excuse me that is 6*) while living in this house for 32-33 years. I didn't like or trust any of them. It is not me. I have had no problems with painters, cabinet installers, wall paper hangers, gardeners, cleaning people, etc., just plumbers. Sorry about that, I got off track there.

I don't like plumbing. However, to Glenn it is a four letter word.

Anyway at age 89.85 I did the latest plumbing escapade. Pic attached. How did it go? It went as good as plumbing goes, you know, defective parts, delays, discomfort, etc. In all honesty I would have to say that I don't want to do any more plumbing unless it will add years to my longevity.

Pic #1 is what I would have liked to be doing---making coasters
Pic #2 is the nice plumbing. I could not get any pictures of the actual work of installation because the air was blue and it distorted everything.

Enjoy,
JimB

* Plumbing #6 was to replace ALL of the pipes on the house side of the water meter. One of the contractor's plumbers did us in by attaching the copper pipe to iron pipe. For those of you who do not know, that sets up electrolysis, an action that pulls the copper molecules and sends them to the iron objects and that makes for leaking copper plumbing.
 
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If I can avoid it, no plumber, electrician, mason, Windows installer or any other species don't enter in my house. I'm sick of paying incompetent people to do jobs that I can do better than them not being a pro, and when I complain about something they asume that I am stupid and tell me " this goes that way" or " they do not produce that anymore", or any other excuse. I do not mind paying what is asked for a good job, I do hate being rip-off and cheated. That include "oficial" or " autorized" instalers who are the worst ones.

Sorry for the rant guys but today is one of those days that it is better not to get up from bed...
 
I grew up as a grandson of the owner of one of the two heating and plumbing companies in town. My dad also worked for my grandpa. I can't count the number of times I went with one or the other to watch them fix the work the other company did. And I recall hearing plenty of cussing when they discovered a mistake they made (hooking hot water up to a toilet?) In my youth, I understood the attitudes of each company. One was about protecting a long standing reputation. The other was about performing as much work as possible to make the most $$$$. While both my dad and grandpa insisted that there were better opportunities in the world than following in their footsteps, I don't mind getting my hands dirty doing the occasional plumbing project. It's not even close to making it on my list of "I won't do that again" projects. Perhaps that's because I don't want one money focused companies to send an undertrained employee into my home.
 
How ironic this came up. We have had a faucet dripping and I have repacked and replaced parts, finally gave in and bought a new faucet. Have never hooked up a fridge's water connection and as we bought a new side by side it needed done also. Since I am driving a bus route as well as teaching, gave Lou the go ahead and call a local plumber we know. Lou tells her we want a braided steel line not a plastic line on the fridge. She says, "I always put a steel line on, those plastic lines are stupid". So she was there yesterday, all day. Replaced the kitchen faucet, put the plastic line in first, Lou reminded her we wanted the steel line, so she had to go back to town. I talked with Lou and told her to have the plumber check my packing job on the bathroom faucet as it doesn't seem to last over a year. Long story short, it takes her all day (the plumber) and my hot water faucet handle points up in the bathroom now instead of down like the cold water handle. I might be slow, but it is done my way when it is over. She won't be back for any jobs.
 
Not just plumbers. The tile installer we hired because "we" wanted a "professional" job left us with some lovely misaligned tile. I mean how tough can it be to make sure the grout lines are straight?
backsplash-1 002.jpg
 
While I don't really enjoy plumbing, I generally have pretty good success doing my own. I do believe it's required by law that one must curse like a sailor when doing plumbing work, though.

But if I REALLY feel the need to curse and throw tools, I just need to work on a car. :rolleyes:
 
While I don't really enjoy plumbing, I generally have pretty good success doing my own. I do believe it's required by law that one must curse like a sailor when doing plumbing work, though.

But if I REALLY feel the need to curse and throw tools, I just need to work on a car. :rolleyes:

Car repair is number 2 for me! my main gripe about plumbing is I don't fit under sinks anymore!

When LOML and I moved to Tennessee, we wound up buying a modular home... technically, a double wide that is sitting on a permanent foundation and has a permanent concrete front porch and a raised wood deck on the back... it's been a plumbing nightmare since we moved in... to date I've replace about half of the pipe connectors under the house... modular homes come with a gray plastic pipe with white plastic fittings...(or at least ours did)... plastic fittings don't last/don't work, etc... I've replaced all the ones I've replaced so far with the copper "Shark bite" fitting at average price of $8 each... none of them leak. I don't mind getting wet and dirty crawling under the house, but have reached a state where it's physically more than I can handle any more, so I do call out a plumber now... have found a plumber and his sons that are licensed plumbers in my area that seem to be more interested in doing good work than making big dollars...

I don't know Jack about autos... if it doesn't start when I turn the key, I'm lost.... I know the principles of why and how an automobile engine works, but that is the end of my knowledge... plus I hate to get grease under my fingernails...
 
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