Yesterday was a well deserved rest - and turkey dinner! - but today we were up bright and early so that we could make it into town for a full days work before the kids arrived at 5pm-ish. We weren't up nearly as early as the poor sots at Home Depot who had to open the store for 6am. Who shops at Home Depot at 6am on Thanksgiving Monday?? I mean 8:45am is early enough! So yes, we were back at Home Depot. Steve was right, plumbing jobs (by amateurs anyways) always result in multiple trips to the store - three to DO-IT and one to Home Depot on Saturday, one each today.
Plumbing isn't exactly hard but it's VERY important and you can't afford to fuck it up. And I do mean 'fuck' and not 'mess' because water is the most relentless and destructive force on the earth and having a leak in your wall would result in plenty of obscenities in the long run that could be avoided by sticking to the simple guideline 'don't fuck it up.' Unfortunately, trying not to fuck it up means taking a long time to figure out the plan and get efficient at prepping the pipe and then there is soldering, plus trying not to burn down the house while you're at it. Oh yah, and then HOPEFULLY nothing leaks. So by the end of today we were pretty sure we were finally good enough to get it all done in the four or five hours we originally had today... As it is we are about halfway done; the pipes in Heik's Hole have been cut and replaced with rigid copper, the cold line is almost complete - minus the tub feed - and the hot line has been started. And we seem to have restored Heik's shoddy craftsmanship (ie. the kitchen cupboards) to it's previous "glory".
I have to say, shiny new rigid copper pipes custom fit to your needs are a sight to behold. There is something truly satisfying about creating a brand new line. As we sat there on the sliver filled planks laid out across the floor joists and prepped our pipes we felt a bit more like craftsmen than construction workers. The quiet camaraderie of sitting and working together while music played in the background was a nice change from the banging of hammers and the whirr of power tools. You can take a certain amount of pride in filing the ends smooth and in creating a perfect tidy solder joint - not to mention your finished sculpture. Just make sure you know which line is hot and which is cold because if you 'fuck' that up you'll have to tear apart your masterpiece or make do with switched hot/cold taps and a Hot flushing toilet. We didn't make that mistake. OK, it was close.
