Today I spent the morning replacing the faucet on my kitchen sink. Which you wouldn't think would be a very long and drawn out process, but in actuality it took a couple of hours. Why should it take so long, you ask? Good question!
Being an older house that was converted from one big farm house into a duplex ages ago, our plumping is kind of a patchwork of old and new plumbing, and as is the case with many things here, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the way things are put together. Case in point: The shut off valve for our cold water isn't on our house, it is located under our neighbor's house. Second case in point: The shut off valve for the hot water isn't anywhere near the cold valve. It is up in the attic, connected to the hot water heater. Just getting up into the attic is a bit of a chore, as is the case with many attics, it wasn't designed for easy access. So I had to scamper up there, crawling along the wooden beams so as not to cause any damage to the ceiling, and managed to bruise my knees up pretty well. First item of protection for the next project? Knee pads.
After I got the water turned off, I had to remove the old faucet, but as there wasn't much room to work under the cupboard, I had to remove the basin from the counter, but in order to do that, I had to pull out the dishwasher so that I could gain access to the other half of the fasteners that hold the basin on the counter top. Pulling out the dishwasher wasn't too much of a chore, but while taking out the basin, I managed to get a few cuts on my fingers on the edges of the metal. Second item of protection for the next project? Work gloves.
I had managed to get all of the hoses and connectors off without too much issue, except that there was a slow continuous drip that was coming off of one of the pipes I had disconnected, which wouldn't have caused any problems if it weren't for the fact that it was dripping directly onto an electrical outlet. Have I mentioned that everything is 220 volt here? Third item of protection for the next project? A brain that should tell you to turn off the power when working around water. Luckily, I didn't get any shocks.
So after disconnecting the old faucet and hoses, connecting the new one, connecting the hoses to the the water valves, and then scrambling to the attic to turn on the hot water and scrambling under the neighbours house to turn on the cold water, I was all done! Well, I would have been done, if I didn't connect the hot water hose to the cold water pipe, and vice versa. So...again with the scrambling to turn off the water and the whole bruised knee thing, reconnect the hoses properly, scrambling again to turn the water back on, and it all worked fine. No dripping or anything.
After reinstalling the basin, the only thing left was to put the dishwasher back. In the course of dragging it out, there was some insulation strewn about the floor, so I started tossing it back in, when I grabbed this strange, mishapped plastic thing. Or what I thought was a strange mishapped plastic thing. Turns out, what I picked up was a dead, mummified, petrified rat that had died under our dishwasher. Last item of protection for the next project? A bucket to throw up in after grabbing a dead, mummified, petrified rat.
Long story short, (too late) the kitchen faucet is working fine, and I have to purchase some protective equipment for the next household project.
Being an older house that was converted from one big farm house into a duplex ages ago, our plumping is kind of a patchwork of old and new plumbing, and as is the case with many things here, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the way things are put together. Case in point: The shut off valve for our cold water isn't on our house, it is located under our neighbor's house. Second case in point: The shut off valve for the hot water isn't anywhere near the cold valve. It is up in the attic, connected to the hot water heater. Just getting up into the attic is a bit of a chore, as is the case with many attics, it wasn't designed for easy access. So I had to scamper up there, crawling along the wooden beams so as not to cause any damage to the ceiling, and managed to bruise my knees up pretty well. First item of protection for the next project? Knee pads.
After I got the water turned off, I had to remove the old faucet, but as there wasn't much room to work under the cupboard, I had to remove the basin from the counter, but in order to do that, I had to pull out the dishwasher so that I could gain access to the other half of the fasteners that hold the basin on the counter top. Pulling out the dishwasher wasn't too much of a chore, but while taking out the basin, I managed to get a few cuts on my fingers on the edges of the metal. Second item of protection for the next project? Work gloves.
I had managed to get all of the hoses and connectors off without too much issue, except that there was a slow continuous drip that was coming off of one of the pipes I had disconnected, which wouldn't have caused any problems if it weren't for the fact that it was dripping directly onto an electrical outlet. Have I mentioned that everything is 220 volt here? Third item of protection for the next project? A brain that should tell you to turn off the power when working around water. Luckily, I didn't get any shocks.
So after disconnecting the old faucet and hoses, connecting the new one, connecting the hoses to the the water valves, and then scrambling to the attic to turn on the hot water and scrambling under the neighbours house to turn on the cold water, I was all done! Well, I would have been done, if I didn't connect the hot water hose to the cold water pipe, and vice versa. So...again with the scrambling to turn off the water and the whole bruised knee thing, reconnect the hoses properly, scrambling again to turn the water back on, and it all worked fine. No dripping or anything.
After reinstalling the basin, the only thing left was to put the dishwasher back. In the course of dragging it out, there was some insulation strewn about the floor, so I started tossing it back in, when I grabbed this strange, mishapped plastic thing. Or what I thought was a strange mishapped plastic thing. Turns out, what I picked up was a dead, mummified, petrified rat that had died under our dishwasher. Last item of protection for the next project? A bucket to throw up in after grabbing a dead, mummified, petrified rat.
Long story short, (too late) the kitchen faucet is working fine, and I have to purchase some protective equipment for the next household project.
