Curmudgeon’s Non-Vacation: Part 5: The Battle

I hadn’t eaten breakfast in anticipation of a yummy “city meal”. Several hour’s drive away there’s a Mongolian grill I like. To most people it’s just a form of fast food but for me it’s a once a year treat. This was the pre-plumbing plan but I hadn’t had time to deal with food. I was fighting a certain amount of “hangry” I dropped $130 at the hardware store.

The last time, that friction fit fitting had been pure hell. This time I was loaded for bear. I bought a tube of plumbing lube. I’ve never used that before. Also I always fuck up Teflon tape. I’ll twist it, wrap it backwards, just generally mess it up… so I bought pipe dope instead. Plus of course all the fittings and a couple feet of that damnable plastic pipe. Back at the basement I’d staged all the plumbing tools I own. My Bernzomatic torch is out of gas but I had a little heater I use for wiring and it was likely good enough.

I also bought a little 2 ½ gallon wet dry vac which became the day’s winning purchase. It was cheap and I think Craftsman tools (as a brand) have been swirling the drain since 1975 but this little pup saved my bacon. (Link to Amazon, and yes I get a kickback if you buy anything. But the little vac really did win my approval.)

I salute you little vac, not all heroes wear capes!

Back in the basement, I sucked up the water. This took several iterations of filling the little 2 ½ gallon vac to the brim. I dumped the water into the sump pump hole and nothing happened. WTF? After some confusion I found out it was on a GFCI outlet (I think that’s what it’s called). The fucking thing had tripped. How long ago had that happened?

I clicked reset and the sump pump surged to life. Fat lot of good an emergency sump pump would be if the damn outlet is unreliable! I’ll have to add “check the sump pump outlet” to the ten million things I need to remember.

I setup a stepladder in a few inches of standing water and started removing the shit I’d installed sometime in the early Obama administration. I had two hose clamps upstream and another two downstream of a valve. I loosened the clamps and nothing happened. I pulled it like Hulk lifting a boat anchor and nothing moved. So much for Plan A.

It’s never a good sign when you reach for the hacksaw but I didn’t have a better idea. Also when shit’s broke it’s not like you’re making it more broke. Luckily plastic pipe is easy to cut. I cut above the valve and a small bit of pressure sprayed my face. No biggie.

Then I cut below the valve and unleashed Old Faithful. DAMMIT!

I’d depressurizing the lines but hadn’t really done that at all. I hadn’t remembered that I was on the upstream side of the pressure tank and taking the pressure off the post-pressure tank faucets and stuff means nothing.

Eventually the chaos subsided. I stomped upstairs to get a fresh shirt, wipe down, and eat a granola bar (I was now ravenous). Mrs. Curmudgeon was full of sympathy. I was miserable.

Back in the basement, I redeployed the brave little Wet Vac and started all over.

Examining the mess, I could see that I’d mis-remembered the epic struggle of 15 years ago. There was a juncture about 2’ back from where I was messing… it was 6” deep in a pass-through busted into a cement block wall between one piece of house and the crawlspace of an adjacent addition. That had been the site of the epic struggle. We’d installed a nipple and added about 2 ½’ to that hellish unreachable spot to move the activity to a more sane location. That nipple, with four hose clamps (two in each direction) was still holding up. I swear I have nightmares about that inaccessible piece of hell.

I’d shortened the 2 ½’ to maybe 2’ so I still had plenty of room to work. I wasn’t going to touch the scene of misery and I didn’t have to!

I cleaned off the cut pipe with a utility knife and slathered a friction fit fitting with lube. Then I heated the pipe with a gadget I use for shrink tubing on wiring. I wasn’t feeling good about this. Last time I did this it was a clusterfuck. It was the kind of pain in the ass that makes you want to sell your farm and move into a condominium. I gritted my teeth…

SCHLORP! The thing slid in almost effortlessly; like it was meant to be there. Cool but also WTF?

I made a few jokes about my houses’ slutty loose fittings and how much I appreciated them. Keeping with dirty jokes, the deeper it went the tighter the fit.

I’m… I’m just gonna’ stop making jokes about such things while I still have a soul.

Anyway I managed the last bit with pliers and channel locks. I had a cheap ass set of slip joint pliers and one decent set of channel locks. It worked. Then I tightened on two new hose clamps. Easy peasy!

I did the same thing with the other side. Soon I had two ends of plastic pipe with nice threaded male ends. I didn’t ask for this job but I was doing it reasonably well. Good for me!

Then I slathered pipe dope on the male ends of the threaded fittings and stuck the brass valve fitting in the middle. I had this idea that spinning the valve would tighten both ends. I was wrong. If you spin one side the other can’t spin and so forth. Fine!

I took it off one side and spun it on the other. It seemed pretty tight. The fitting had flat sides to facilitate an open ended wrench so I dug around in my garage for one that was big enough for the job. I couldn’t find one. So I grabbed my biggest adjustable wrench… which was also too small.*

*(In retrospect it occurs to me that the spud wrench I keep in my tractor for arguing with three point hitch implements would have done the job. I didn’t think of that at the time. I was thinking with blinders on.)

The slip joint pliers weren’t up to the task but I found a second channel lock; this one probably made of Chinese pot metal in a back alley in Bangalore. Whatever I paid for it, it wasn’t much. Whatever I paid, was too much.

My tools from left to right: “useless”, “inadequate”, “barely adequate”.

Sure enough one channel lock gripped like the hand of Thor but the other was weak and uninspiring (like Woody Allen in the middle of a monologue about ennui). It did work, but not well.

I de-schlorped the friction fit on the opposite side, channel locked it onto the doped threads and spun it on. That looked OK too. Then I re-schlorped (insert joke here) into the plastic pipe and re-tightened the two pipe clamps.

I’d done it!

My God! It’s beautiful!

Intellectually; this was the easiest job ever. A fuckin’ monkey could figure out what needed doing. However, this particular monkey isn’t experienced or tooled up so it had taken a while. Regardless, it was done. I was so happy!

Just then Mrs. Curmudgeon called down (no way was she going to venture into our basement personally… too many spiders and icky things and also a wet grumpy husband).

“I found a plumber! He’s coming in 3 hours!”

Wow, just wow. I finish the job and a plumber manifests exactly then? God has an amazing sense of humor.

Rather than call him off, I let it ride. I had a few hours before arrival and when a plumber says they’re coming there’s a 70% chance they’re not anyway. Plus, I hadn’t tested the line.

I took a beautiful picture of my excellent work and turned on the water.

Stay tuned…