One Too Many Potatoes: Man Versus Plumbing (A Leak of Their Own)

After much procrastination, last year I finally decided to remodel the downstairs bathroom. It had been 15 years since we had originally installed a second bath and had sort of done it on the cheap so it was in need of more than just a little TLC. I sort of like remodeling and am halfway good at it, but to be honest with you, plumbing is my downfall.

So I penciled in Wednesday as the prime plumbing day during remodel week (remodel week actually turned into remodel 26 weeks).

I asked a bunch of friends to fast and pray for me for that day.

I bought all of the PEX pipe (I’ll explain that in a minute) and all the little PEX fittings and took out a loan and rented the PEX crimping tool.

I knew exactly where I wanted to tie the new PEX line into the old cast iron line – all I had to do was remove two innocent looking PVC fittings I had installed fifteen years earlier. Shouldn’t be much of a problem at all.

I turned off the water and drained the lines. I then very gingerly placed the wrench on the PVC fitting and proceeded with the utmost care and gentlest of force to begin to turn the fitting.

Suddenly (and without any warning) I heard a sickening “snap.”

My knees buckled and my face turned pale as I beheld half of the fitting in the wrench and the threaded part still in the old cast iron pipe.

I then did what any self respecting man’s man would do…

I curled up into the fetal position and called my plumber.

BILL!!!!! ITS DAN!!!! HELP!!!!!

Miraculously, Bill the plumber was there within an hour. (I know this is so incredible to believe but its TRUE!)

He then paused and looked at me and said, “Are you crying?”

I immediately tried to turn away. “No I am not crying.”

Again, he sternly looked at me and asked more forcefully, “Are you crying?”

“No!” I insisted, “I am not crying!”

He got right in my space and hollered in drill sergeant fashion, “There’s no crying in Plumbing!”

It was then that I remembered that classic Tom Hanks movie, “A Leak of Their Own.”

With a little torch Bill removed the broken fitting in a jiffy. That little piece of now-melted-plastic cost me $120.00.

He then gave me a “Knute Rockne Win-One-for-the-Plumber” PEX pep talk. I pulled myself together, wiped away the tears and began to feel a whole lot better.

My aversion (and horror) to plumbing began several years earlier when we remodeled our kitchen. At one point I had to replace just a teeny tiny fitting on an old cast iron water pipe. The full story is out here somewhere on this blog.

Suffice it to say that by that evening I had one broken water line and gallons of brown icky water shooting up to the kitchen ceiling and flowing back down into the basement.

So ever since then, when someone asks me, “Hey are you good at Plumbing?” I begin to twitch and stammer and I walk away mumbling, “Plumbing…me no good at it….shooting water….lots of pain…Plumbing…me no good at it...shooting water…lots of pain.”

But PEX is cool stuff – its like it was made with me in mind! It’s a type of very bendable plastic piping that doesn’t require the use of any soldering or torches or glue or atomic explosions or shooting water or crying.

PEX is an acronym for Polyunsaturated Esoteric Xylophones – I think I have that right anyway.

The piping itself isn’t too expensive – you can buy it in giant rolls. And it involves crimping little crimp rings onto the end of the pipe once you put the fitting in.

But because its so easy for the do-it-yourselfer to use and the material isn’t that pricey, plumbers have conspired together to sell or rent the crimping tool at exorbitant prices!

This actual conversation was overheard at a recent plumber’s convention:

“Hey Fred our plumbing business has fallen off dramatically since the advent of PEX so lets buy up all the crimping tools in the whole world and rent them for $500.00 per hour!”

“Hey Norm, that’s a great idea!”

(You can use your wife’s 1980’s Daryl-Hannah-Splash hair crimper but I’ve found that you can only use it once because the sledge hammer that's used to "assist" renders the hair crimper like totally wasted.)

Anyway, I bought a 1000 foot roll of the stuff, 600 crimp rings, 413 brass T joints, 289 straight couplers, 127 shut off valves and a bunch of other stuff.

The actual plumbing run was only about 25 feet, but I wanted to be prepared for any event that anyone could possibly even conjure up in their wildest nightmare scenarios.

I tied the PEX into the existing line that was fixed by plumber Bill, and then at every 5 foot interval, I put in a shutoff valve. I wasn’t taking any chances! My basement looks like the boiler room on the Titanic.

Anyway, the basic remodel job was done in about 6 months. During that time (and because it took so long to turn back on all of those shut off valves) we used this for our temporary facilities :>)