Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Joys of an Older Home

I decided to wash some dishes by hand the other night (don't be shocked), and pulled my dishrack out from under the sink. I set it up on the side board, ran some soapy water into one side of the sink and put a rubber mat in the other. Then I began to wash. Z-boy came in just as I was beginning to rinse stuff and I heard a strange noise.

I turned around. "Z? Are you peeing on the floor????"

Mr. Innocent looked right back at me - "No, Mommy! I would never do that!" (history not with-standing... of course, he was much younger then.)

The noise continued, so we listened hard and followed the sound to.... under the sink. What a mess! VOLUMES of water to mop up. It was very weird - we hadn't had so much as a drip under there and now it was Niagara Falls.

We cleaned up as best we could, and came up with our temporary strategy for washing dishes or rinsing out coffee pots...

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And I called a plumber, who came today.... A big guy, who squeezed himself under my sink for the better part of an hour. This is what he brought out with him:

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The house is 43 years old. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. No wonder the water was coming out the way it was! This was the second failed-pipe call to these guys. I am curious how many more there will be before our lease is up???

Courtesy of Wayne the Plumber, at least I have this sexy little number to keep me distracted until the next plumbing catastrophy occurs!

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Whoo-ha!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice lines!!

At least it was not electrical taped over the holes as was the sink pipes in the last house I lived in. That was done by the owner. Nice surprise, huh.

Stef

Anonymous said...

my house is over 60 years old and nothing works right. trying to change the back door locks turned into a 4 hour project due to warped door (originaly wooden) and walls. it makes me want a brand new home. so far we've replaced the roof, front door, carpet (only to reveal beautiful hard wood. grrrr!) and i think the water heater is seeing it's last days. i feel you. at least yours is just a lease!

Kevin Charnas said...

I will attempt to post this again, stupid blogger!
that IS a sexy little number! love that faucet.
Sorry you had problems...did the plumber give you any hairy butt crack? If so, next time get a pic of that too...maybe even slip a quarter in there and make a wish? :)

BlondeBlogger said...

Love the new faucet!!! We seem to be cursed with water stuff wherever we live.

Our last house, we heard a sound like you described, only it really did sound like Niagra falls....loud gushing. But we thought maybe it was the hard rains outside, until my husband opened the basement door and it got really, really loud.

We ran down there and, I kid you not, a waterfall of water was pouring through our basement window into our basement. It looked like something out of the Titanic.

My husband rushed outside, put sandbags around the water well and it diverted the flooding water outside away from the window. But at that point, we had water up to our ankles in the basement.

Our builder, who lived down the street, came over with a wet vac (this was the only house we didn't have a sump pump in because they told us we wouldn't need it...ha!) and he helped us get all of the water out of our basement. It was a nightmare!

I could go on and on with a million water stories. My husband even has water nightmares now because of all of the incidents we've had, lol.

Glad your problem got solved!

Anonymous said...

What's it like to be able to afford a plumber? I have to figure out and fix stuff myself. Not pretty.

Sayre said...

S William - this house is about a year younger than I am... I can relate to the need for some serious maintenance or repair!!!

Stef - the electrical situation here is even worse. Our landlord fancied himself a do-it-yourself-er with predictable results...

Nikki - unfortunately, brand new homes come with their OWN set of problems. I had one when I lived in OK and it was a nightmare. I actually prefer the aging problems to the unsolvable new ones.

Kevin - Actually, there was a little butt crack, but not hairy... I did not, however, wish to get anywhere near it. Oh, and my sexy little number? The faucet head pulls out into a hose! I love it!

Dawn - My parents had a house with a blocked french drain. Everytime it rained they pulled out the wet/dry vacs because the downstairs flooded... They had four of them!

Jeff - ha! The only reason I can "afford" a plumber is that the landlord reimburses me very quickly for any money I spend on this house. Part of our deal was that they would pay for any improvements we wanted to make. Most of the improvements we do ourselves (at a reduced rent), but I know when a professional is the only way to go!

Mel said...

OMG! I loved the faucet BEFORE you said "pulls out into a hose" - now I LUST for it.
(And not in a pervert kind of way, either. Although...)