All of a sudden there's a theme to my home-ownership problems -- plumbing. And the problems aren't really related, just coincidental in time. A week ago I replaced the anodes in my hot water heater. The hard water eats them up over time ($260). Yesterday the well service company came out to size up an 'air' problem...most likely a check valve in the well. Since my well is deep, there are probably 2 or 3 of them. Accessing the well is a bigger problem than the check valves. The well is on a steep slope, not far from power lines. And since the pump is now 15 years old, and they generally last about 15 years, I may as well go ahead and replace it at the same time. And since accessing the well is a problem and lawn damage is inevitable, I may as well replace the pipe with plastic -- because that would eliminate the access problem (no truck needed). All those have-to's and might-as-wells.... I'm guessing around $5,000. Groan. As an aside, having a well doesn't mean your water is free; it just means you pay for it all at once in one huge chunk, rather than small amounts every month.
The hot water heater and the air in the well are not the sum total of my plumbing problems. The sink stopper in the half-bath broke. So far I've watched two YouTube videos and made two Home Depot runs to replace that ($15). Tomorrow I ought to have that back together. I didn't feel like fumbling with it anymore tonight. My one success of the day was replacing the faucet aerator in the guest bathroom...which only needed replacing after I took it off to clean it ($7).
Plumbing issues still waiting for my attention are a slowly weeping toilet (which leaves stains in the bowl) and filters that need to be cleaned in the master bath shower. I think I can do the former with a YouTube video. The latter, on the advice of my brother, needs a real plumber because of the sophistication of the setup. But I can't call a real plumber until I solve a tiling problem -- my ex tiled too close to the filter-jobbies and I have to figure out how to open it up without cracking the tile anywhere else. In the meantime, the water pressure is so bad, I have to use the guest bathroom shower. This shower has glass doors and if you don't get the doors on the right side, water leaks out. I must have done that this morning because when I came down to the kitchen after my shower, there was water on the counter, having escaped through a light fixture. Egads.
I'd like to say I'm proud I can take these things on and do some of them myself, but I'd rather skip the lessons, and the time invested would be more fun spent somewhere else. Little by little all of these problems will be handled and with any luck, I'll be done with plumbing for another five years.
The hot water heater and the air in the well are not the sum total of my plumbing problems. The sink stopper in the half-bath broke. So far I've watched two YouTube videos and made two Home Depot runs to replace that ($15). Tomorrow I ought to have that back together. I didn't feel like fumbling with it anymore tonight. My one success of the day was replacing the faucet aerator in the guest bathroom...which only needed replacing after I took it off to clean it ($7).
Plumbing issues still waiting for my attention are a slowly weeping toilet (which leaves stains in the bowl) and filters that need to be cleaned in the master bath shower. I think I can do the former with a YouTube video. The latter, on the advice of my brother, needs a real plumber because of the sophistication of the setup. But I can't call a real plumber until I solve a tiling problem -- my ex tiled too close to the filter-jobbies and I have to figure out how to open it up without cracking the tile anywhere else. In the meantime, the water pressure is so bad, I have to use the guest bathroom shower. This shower has glass doors and if you don't get the doors on the right side, water leaks out. I must have done that this morning because when I came down to the kitchen after my shower, there was water on the counter, having escaped through a light fixture. Egads.
I'd like to say I'm proud I can take these things on and do some of them myself, but I'd rather skip the lessons, and the time invested would be more fun spent somewhere else. Little by little all of these problems will be handled and with any luck, I'll be done with plumbing for another five years.