The following Dodgers have been smited by the JDK for their crimes against Jam:
All the girls! for picking on the JDK and damaging his already delicate self esteem!
The Basserd Who Nicked Copper's Stuff For the offense of nicking Copper's stuff. You are a tw*t, whoever you are and we all hope you get run over by a tram in Nottingham. Or Liverpool. Or whereever else they have trams!
Copper For the crime of playing with her Wii instead of her Jammie pals!
Yesterday my kitchen sink clogged up. Ordinarily not a big deal, but this sink has a garbage disposal attached. I've never delt with garbage disposals before, but thought "Hey, how hard could this be? I'm handy".
So this morning, I turned off the electric and water, whipped out my trusty channel lock wrench and went to work on the trap. Just finished unscrewing the trap and water... EVERYWHERE! Eh well I'm plumbing.. I knew I'd get soaked.
Emptied out the trap, reattached. Turned on electric/water. Ran water. Not going down. Turned on garbage disposal, still not going down.
Turned everything back off. Opened trap a second time. TIDAL WAVE! Hmm ok, must have been more stuck in the pipe. Empty trap again. Reattached. Turn on electric/water. Run water. Not going down. Ahuh.
Clog must be in garbage disposal pipe. Turn off everything again, clean out trap. Third wave of water (and yes I did have a bucket under the pipe, but it didnt seem to matter much). Two inches of water in my cabinet. Attempt to take off garbage disposal pipe. First screw comes off easily. Second screw is rusted on. Realizing I have no WD40 in the house, there's really nothing better than brute force, right? Find pliers. Take off rusty screw.... sort of. Enough that I could see there was no clog in the pipe.
Hmm.
Reattach everything. Turn on water/electric. Run water. Oh no! Sprung a leak! Is leaking from where brute force met screw.
Off to the store to buy silicone... and its only 6:26am. What a day!
ohh poor you. seeing we're sharing stories.. (not that mine happened at 6.30am, that just adds a slight superiority to yours and )
my husband is quite a handy man, but he doesn't ALWAYS get it right (re. the car electronics incident) .. anyway.. we have an island in our kitchen with a sink in it and under said sink is a cupboard with a shelf, and the very sloppy kitchen man decided he would randomly drill a hole thru the middle of the shelf for the water pipes..
.so we (/billy) decided (in order to fit our bread bin down there) we would drill a different hole, nearer the edge
i probably don't need to explain how the drill slipped and promptly went thru the closest HOT WATER pipe, nor how we had absolutely no idea where the tap was to turn off the water, nor how when we eventually retrieved the ladder from the garage, climbed up into the loft and found the blasted tap that did turn the water off that we discovered a small screw on the broken pipe itself that would have turned of the FREAKING HOT WATER.
needless to say, by the time we got it turned off, our floor was awash with two inches of water and our recently laid wooden floor bubbled every time you stepped on it for the following week
we are not plumbers either
ps. darren, by the word 'island' i mean a freestanding area of kitchen cupboards, not a piece of land surrounded by water with a palm tree
I probably shouldn't laugh... but I'm just glad I'm not the only one!
I was hanging out on a DIY forum the other day and came across this story. Made me feel really good about my plumbing prowess.
"Several years ago, I bought my first house and soon learned the joys of home ownership.
The sink in one of the bathrooms leaked slightly, in need of a simple washer replacement. Although I had never done any plumbing work, I thought I could handle the task without a problem. Off to the hardware store for some washers and get started!
I tried to remove the handle, just a little screw you know, but it would not budge. Get the WD40 and soak it down, come back later, no problem right? WRONG. Shot it again and tried it a little later. NOPE!
OK no big deal. I'll replace the faucet, as this one ain't that nice anyhow. Time to go back to town, get the faucet, and one of those funny looking wrenches to disconnect the water lines up at the faucet. Let's see here this one is about $10 and you use a 3/8" ratchet & extension. Ah heres one for $3.99! and it even has it's own shaft with a handle to turn. What a deal!
Back home I head with my new faucet and tool. By the way, I sprayed WD40 on the connections before I headed to the store so they should come off really easy! NOPE, these thing are tighter than Dick's hatband, and probably never been taken off since the original installation about 20 years earlier. More WD and let it soak in, but still no luck. Then I realize the problem. The handle on my new tool is too shot to afford the require leverage to turn the dang nut!
Out to the garage I go to find a way to extend the handle. The shaft is probably about 3/8" diameter with a 1/4" or so bar that slides through a hole for the handle. Unable to find a piece of pipe, I figured that a box wrench slid over the 1/4" handle and pressed against the shaft would work just fine. Even tried it out in the garage with great success.
Back to the bathroom, armed with my improved tool I go. Wriggle the facuet wrench back onto the nut and apply the newfound tourqe. The nut seems to be moving a little! Inspired, I add a little more pressure! At this point, the Bargin Tool decides to disassemble itself, freeing the box wrench to slap against the underside of the sink.
After clearing my face and head of the parts from the faucet wrench and advising my neighbors of my joy with the Bargin Tool I had purchased, I look up and find the box wrench is stuck through the ceramic sink.
At this point I decided that I didn't really like the sink that much anyway, and really should put in a vanity for the extra storage. Back to the gargae for the tools I need to remove the sink from the wall. I knew exactly which tools the job call for too! A large cardboard box and a small sledgehammer. Off the wall it came with such ease that I could only wonder why I hadn't thought of this sooner.
Next it's off the the home improvement store for a new sink and vanity! Get the vanity assembled and installed set the sink in place with the new faucet attached. ARRGH! the water lines from the old sink are too short to reach! Back to the store for my third trip and get new lines. Hook up the water then attack the drain, we're on the homestretch now! As I grasp the P-trap firmly with one hand to steady it as I tighten the nut, my thumb creates a new exit hole in the bottom.
Return to the store (trip number 4 if you're keeping track) for all new drain pipes and fittings and finally the job is done. All this excitement crammed into a span of only 8 hours. What had started out as a simple task with a cost of approximately 25 cents had turned into major project that cost nearly $200.
A few months later, when the sink in the other bathroom began to leak, I immediatelty went to the garage and found my cardboard box and small sledge and fixed that one too.
As I cleaned up and put away my tools, I found the package of washers on my workbench and quietly placed them in the trash.
The moral of this story? If it don't fit, get a bigger hammer."
Andromeda wrote: Yesterday my kitchen sink clogged up. Ordinarily not a big deal, but this sink has a garbage disposal attached. I've never delt with garbage disposals before, but thought "Hey, how hard could this be? I'm handy".
You live in an apartment complex. Let THEM do it. You'll have plenty of time to flood your own kitchen later
By doing your own major repairs to an apartment you run the risk of getting screwed out of your security deposit. I don' t know if the laws are different where you are, but the minute you make a repair, you're opening the door for them to say that the repair was done incorrectly/insufficiently and they need your security money to cover the cost of a new repair.
Plus, you get no long term benefit by repairing something for someone else. You won't get reimbursed for it..
Andromeda wrote: Yesterday my kitchen sink clogged up. Ordinarily not a big deal, but this sink has a garbage disposal attached. I've never delt with garbage disposals before, but thought "Hey, how hard could this be? I'm handy". You live in an apartment complex. Let THEM do it. You'll have plenty of time to flood your own kitchen later By doing your own major repairs to an apartment you run the risk of getting screwed out of your security deposit. I don' t know if the laws are different where you are, but the minute you make a repair, you're opening the door for them to say that the repair was done incorrectly/insufficiently and they need your security money to cover the cost of a new repair. Plus, you get no long term benefit by repairing something for someone else. You won't get reimbursed for it..
Can't let maintenance guy in apartment. Illegal tenant. Will get evicted.
After much cursing, almost getting stuck in the cabinet, 3 trips to home depot, one to walmart and one heck of a hand cramp, I am pleased to announce the following:
My sink works again. No tenants, illegal or otherwise, were evicted in the process. I can now successfully take apart and put back together (with no "extra" pieces ) a garbage disposal. I rock as a plumber
)
