Fun in the forenoon.

This is just an example of the depths to which my life has now sunk.  It’s all about plumbing,  heating and air conditioning. 

Over the last couple weeks I’ve been entertaining various representatives from air conditioning firms, with the objective being to get a “mini-split” system installed in the not too distant future.  The prices are scary,  but I’m getting too old and tired to be installing window units in this place.  And besides,  we want to replace the front window this summer anyway,  and chances are exceedingly slim that a window unit will ever be put in there again.  So we have to do it.

And you’re probably thinking, “What, air conditioning in Canada?  But isn’t it cold?”.   Um ya,  I used to think Florida was always warm,  or that they never got snow in Texas.  That’s not the reality.  It gets stinkin’ hot here. And that wouldn’t even be so bad if it weren’t for the humidity.  Some days you can just chew it,  it’s so heavy.

But enough of that.

This morning as I was sitting peacefully up there in the bathroom,  I made a decision!  And no,  I’m not referring to my diet either,  I’m talking about the hot water tap that has been dripping pretty much constantly for a few years now.  I just haven’t had the temerity during some of our shorter visits to get it sorted out.   Ultimately,  that bathroom will be the last one on the list of renovations, but the constant dripping in meantime has been getting to be too much to bear.

The thing is,  I seem to recall working on that very tap many, many years ago when the house belonged to my late father-in-law.  I guess I must have known my way around a Monkey Wrench  back then,  or at least he thought I did.  I somehow naively thought we would have torn out that bathroom before I’d ever have to go there again. 

Silly fool.

 

You can well see that these poor things are looking pretty sad.  In my previous encounter,  I had to chew away a bit at part of the flange in order to get a wrench on the valve.  I do have a set of deep sockets,  but the valve was never designed such that one would fit.  Swell.

(Also note the lovely 50s peach coloured tiles) 

If you’ve ever done this,  only to discover that the darned thing still leaks,  that’s probably because you didn’t remove the “seat”.   It’s the round copper thingy that the rubber bits come in contact with.  If it’s scored (happens when you get crud in the line) it’ll leak.

 

Note seat removal tool.  Very important.

 

Off to the arsenal.

This is a very,  very tiny portion of all the plumbing bits I have on hand.   Once upon a time I had to sort out a few apartments,  so I always had a bunch of stuff hanging around.

I was ever so briefly tempted to clean up the old one and reinstall it.  Just for the briefest of moments.  And then I came to my senses.  I think a new seat is worth what?  A buck?  I have no idea.  But putting it back together and having it leak again would truly suck. Note previous comment.

 

Which is not to say I’ve never had issues in the past.  But after fiddling around with plumbing bits for close to 30 years,  I’m a pretty good beginner.

Shutting off the water,  running up and down stairs,  going out to fetch the odd forgotten tool (although I didn’t do too badly) is probably the underlying reason for putting this one off for as long as I did.

All to replace these two tiny little bits.

Seems hardly worth, except for that part where it doesn’t drip any more.

 

You can see the washer on the left there is pooched.

 

I really wanted to put fresh packing on the diverter (that’s the valve in the middle that “diverts” the water to the shower head),  but it was not cooperating when I went to remove it. Snapping it off would have been really, really bad.   I ain’t that dumb,  so I left it alone.  If not all the water is getting up to the shower head,  I can almost stand it.  Almost.  But at least now there isn’t water escaping even when nobody is around. 

If it ever warms up around here,  I might get outside and sort out some of the issues we have with the automatic sprinkler system that I installed long,  long ago.  It’ll need a little TLC. 

But that’s for another day.

 

Thanks for lookin’ in.

 

Keep it between the ditches.

 

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