Here’s the before:
and here’s the after:
I now understand why it costs so much to call in a plumber. Replacing a 25 year old faucet is a disgusting pain in the ass. I was breezing right along until I hit the dreaded “stuck drain flange” which prevented me from installing the new pop-up drain assembly. Now, I know way more plumbing terminology than I really wanted to. At the next party, I’ll be out in the garage, hanging around the keg and debating silicone sealant vs plumber’s putty. It’s a scary thought.
Thank gawd for youtube videos. There are all kinds of mansplainers on youtube who take you through the process step-by-step. Anyone can do it given nitrile gloves, the right tools- and a hacksaw.
Unfortunately for me, there are three more of these bears waiting to be done and I have no expectation that any of them will be easier than the first. Now I know where all the potential trouble spots are and am destined to hit them, some of them more than once. {{shudder}}
What’s on your to-do list?
Filed under: General Tagged: | faucets, hacksaws, Home improvement horrors
I’m impressed. I would be afraid to break the pipe the and end up paying 10 times more for the repair than I would have if I had called the plumber from the beginning.
Once you disconnect the drain from the waste pipe, you’re pretty much safe. When you loosen the nut under the sink and clear away the old putty, the drain should rotate freely. I just couldn’t get the damn flange out of the top side of the sink. Years of use and plumbers putty seemed to have welded the flange to the drain pipe. I tried a channel lock, WD40 and a strap wrench. Not coming off. The hacksaw worked perfectly.
If I can do this crap, you can do it.
You don’t mean “what’s on my to-do list?” There’s all sorts of useful stuff on my to-do list. The question is: what will I actually do? And even though past performance is no guarantee of future results, the evidence says the answer is “not much.”
Certainly nothing as adventurous as faucets.
See, but that’s the thing. It’s not rocket science. And now that I’ve done it, I realize that men have been faking their fix-it gene. Each one of them have had to stick their heads under the sink and figure it out piece by piece. The mystery is gone. It’s still not fun and turning stuff and sawing pipes takes a lot of physical effort but actually doing the steps is not any harder for women than for men.
It’s not that adventurous. Purifying protein takes a lot more skill.
I’m impressed.