I remember my Saturday mornings used to be quite different.
Now when I'm lay in bed, my wife rolls over, snuggles in close and whispers softly in my ear
"The kitchen sink is leaking".
Not what I had planned. Whoever bodged this sink before me didn't do a great job. It only took me about 5 minutes to find out why it was leaking, it was blocked up right at the end in the drain and then backing up and coming out of the washing machine waste. This had wrecked the unit under the sink even more than it already was, the wet slowly destroying it and making it fall apart. I like the fact that it has doors on it though, so I can close them and forget about it our slowly distorting kitchen unit.
I fixed the leak by removing the blockage and cutting the pipe a bit shorter to stop it happening again. I also check the U bend to make sure that was clear. Then just as I was about to pack up and put my stuff away a fitting burst.
I hadn't even touched it, but it just started spraying water everywhere. I tuned off the water and removed the faulty fitting. It was a Y splitter I had brought off eBay, it felt cheap when I fitted it and I was right, it was cheap crap. The thing had split down the middle. Luckily it had happened when I was there or it would have been a right mess.
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| The new and the old fitting |
So my Saturday morning was finished off with a trip to the plumbers merchants (with my two year apprentice in tow) to buy a fitting that cost £2, I think it cost more than that in fuel.
Although it cost me most of my morning to put these things right, I wonder how much it would have cost to get a plumber in to do it all for me? Sometimes it's good to be self reliant!
As my mum still says...."buy cheap crap pay twice"....though she wouldn't use the word 'crap', on second thoughts though...
ReplyDeleteWhat's worse is that it was no cheaper as I got it trade price. just more convenient to buy it off the Internet. The trouble is with buying on line, unless you know the brand, you can't tell the quality.
DeleteI often get given the nice jobs on our smallholding, Kev: Picking up and burying a dead rat or bird, unblocking the pipe to the septic tank or catching a bat that's come down the chimney...?
ReplyDeleteI agree with John. You can't make something good, cheap. Especially garden tools.
It would be me that has to dispose of anything dead as well as unblocking pipes.
DeleteI try not to buy cheap but its the perils when buying online
You were lucky not to get a plumber involved, not sure I could afford one to drive by and wave at me, they charge for that to I think.
ReplyDeleteThey are stupid money and it really frustrates me. I supose it's supply and demand. I guess I should have been a plumber rather than a carpenter!
DeleteWhen we first moved in here we could smell a weird smell.Turns out the dishwasher connection was direct to the septic outlet without a U bend (or whatever is meant to be there).How on earth the previous owners lived with that is beyond me. Luckily Chris is good at that sort of thing..it saves us so much money.
ReplyDeleteJane x
We used to get it with stock properties if they'd been left for a long while. You had to make sure you went into them all and run water down the sinks and flush the loo about once a week or so.
DeleteA couple years ago I modified our bathroom vanity (cabinet) as there was simply not enough room to sit strait in the toilet without your knees making contact with the cabinet. So I cut it down from 24 to 12 inches deep, made a nice new wooden epoxied and polyurethaned counter with a nice top mount bowl type sink requiring one of those 12 inch high faucets. I made the mistake of buying the cheap Chinese 70 $ faucet on Ebay instead of the 180 $ Chinese one at the local Home-depot big box store. In a short while the faucet started to leak internally and was impossible to fix ruining my nice wooden counter top by allowing water to soak in the raw edge of the hole that the faucet went through. Learned my lesson, you gets what you pays for!!!!
ReplyDeleteWell this unit is only a chipboard one but it's well past repair. I don;t know if it'll last until the extension is built or if I'll have t oreplace it. the next kitchen I have to fit I'm going to try and save the same sized units, if I'm ripping out, and replace it without disconnecting our sink or anything!#
DeleteWhen something is half the price it's normally for a reason but there is always that time where they are both selling the same thing and one person is just making a lot more profit on it!
£60 call out and then £40 an hour here.
ReplyDeleteBlinking heck, I wouldn't mind that sort of money! makes my £2 + fuel spend look pretty good then!
DeleteI've fixed so many things since buying this house 11 years ago. It's amazing the cheap parts and shoddy workmanship I've had to repair. And it usually very very obvious that another few dollars and 20 minutes from the get-go would have done a fine job. In fact, what I've started to do is "The bathroom faucet leaks - needs new seals" I also put new seals in the other faucets, etc while I've got the tools out and the right mind set. It's starting to pay off. Good job on fixing your drains!
ReplyDeleteWith a house like that one job always leads to another and before you know it something that was going to take 5 minutes ends up takinga day!
DeleteI know what you mean about doing it when your in the right mind set. Also never do that type of job when your tired. Things are so much more likely to go wrong!