So, its nearly 10 PM, I'm sitting outside on my porch blogging and drinking a beer and- waiting for a plumber to arrive... he's 45 minutes and $175 dollars away...
It all started so innocently tonight. I was going to try to get the camper readied for a trip this weekend. One of the items on the checklist is putting drinkable water in to the storage tank. Since our outside primary water tap has been broken for some years, that means I normally have to run a 100 foot hose through the carport, into the house, down the stairs and connect it under a counter in the basement.
Its a pain. And the 100 foot hose gets used for secondary water which is not treated for drinking and I always have to flush it out before hooking it up to the camper.
So tonight I decided I would just replace that busted tap and save myself some grief-right... It didn't unscrew from the house plumbing of course, it twisted off the copper pipe it was attached to, leaving the house with no running water! No problem, its in the basement and with just a little time I had cut a hole in the sheetrock ceiling and discovered the source of the problem. Looks easy enough, one trip to Home Depot should do the trick. Went to the store, found the parts I needed and back home again after a Taco Bell supper for the BSU and myself.
Of course, if one trip to HD is good, two must be better and I did make the second trip when my new parts turned out to be 1 inch too short. Got more parts. Went back into the basement, got everything lubed up with flux, slipped together and proceeded to try to get these pre-soldered fittings heated up.
Everything worked except one solder joint... Now I'm starting to get cranky. Reheat things, take the leaky joint apart, try to clean it up but now there's too much solder and things won't slip back together. I decide to remove that fitting to work on it closer. I can't get it hot enough to loosen the solder joint... Then I bent the fitting trying to twist it while heating. Now I'm cussing, its past 9 so I can't go buy a tank for my biger, hotter torch and I can't turn on the house water!
Time to call in a professional, Grr! So I'm sitting outside where I can smoke a cigar while drinking my beer, waiting. I didn't get the camper ready, obviously and I didn't get any of my reading assignments for tomorrow night's classes read and I'm spending my camping trip money so that I can have a shower and a flush toilet before I go to bed tonight.
I shoulda just drug the damm hose down the stairs on the new carpet!
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