I swear to you—it’s houses. Wherever water is, water can be.
But I am going to try drying it all out. We’ve got the side panel off the dishwasher, which gives access to the under-cabinet space, and we’ve got a fan running.
Bashed my hand—or stressed it: I’ve got a heckuva ‘mouse’ between my first and second knuckles: not the first time that’s happened, but it twinges every time I use the index finger. Does wonders for your concentration while typing.
Jane meanwhile has the bathroom spackling job, and is sanding away. She’s working on 3 hours sleep a night, and can’t rest. I couldn’t load the dishwasher problem onto her. Meanwhile my back is out: you know, that lovely twist where your left shoulder is going at an angle while you’re walking straight ahead. We’re going to have to take one afternoon off and get me to the chiropractor, and that means I lose a whole day on muscle relaxant, plus the driving.
Jane and bathroom spackle? I thought you folks had elected to have a pro do your bathroom tile, or is this something else?
I now have an image of CJ channeling Igor: “Walk dis way…” I hope you are able to get the undersink dried out before mold sets in; maybe a small dehumidifier would be worth it. You may even be able to rent one for a week, if you don’t need it constantly and don’t already have one that you can repurpose. Our kitchen undersink had a leak some years ago, and still has mold stains and water damage. One of these days I will get around to replacing that cabinet, I swear by Bog!
We have one: they’re not that spendy…got a nice little Frigidaire chugging away on the problem.
It’s not just houses. We live in an RV and every now and then we have to take everything apart to find the new leak. Enhanced by the fact that 1) all our water fittings are finger-tight screw in connections (easy to fix, but easy to loosen too) and 2) our house rumbles down the road on a regular basis. The water pump was coming on last night when no water was running; I am dreading trying to find whatever was making that happen.
I feel for you, and I know just what you’re going through; I’m the plumber in our dwelling too.
WEll, we think we’ve found 5 causes or potential/future causes. 1—a ‘soft’ connector on a Badger garbage disposal: hose clamp is on it, but it is squishier than we like. 2. a slice in a tub seal on the dishwasher: 20.00 to replace it, and we think it is worth doing. It’s not the current leak. 3. three unreachable screws on the Badger where it connects to the sink: this is going to be a bear to tighten, but we’re suspicious that that’s one source, because water coming in to that FROM the dishwater is being pumped, ergo under pressure, ergo a strong leak. But the kicker: after going after all this—we discovered a weak seal on the pet water fountain. We think this may be one of the major sources, and we’re suspicious about the disposal connections.
Re the spackling—we’re also replacing the cabinets, and pulled the backsplash, which was all tile: we’re repainting.
Why is Jane not sleeping more? I worry about her trying to get by on 3 hours sleep a night. No wonder she has anemia!
Worry. She can’t turn loose the problems of the house and the site, so she’s up sanding at 6 am. She wants to be writing, and every time she almost gets it going, something blows up. She tries to take the pressure off me, but it piles up on her. And now our kitchen we just cleaned is a mess, the racks are all over, the cabinets are all emptied out, the dishwasher is half pulled out, and the table we decorated for Christmas is all stacked high with construction stuff. Our one bathroom has no cabinets, no mirrors, no tile in the back wall of the tub, and we’re just really in plaster and dust all over.
Dang, age just sucks—for anything, houses and people included! Nobody ever warned me that getting old would be so difficult!
I don’t know if you’ve heard of EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) but it is really great for helping with many things, but especially with things like Jane’s propensity to worry.
It could also be helpful with your finger pain. I’ve tapped away a severe crippling shoulder pain (an injury aggravated by a toxic accumulation of tea tree oil), and some back alignment stuff that would normally require a chiropractic adjustment.
I’ve also been able to stop worrying and other negative fear based emotions dead in their tracks—when I remember to do it, that is! 🙂
So I personally can attest to it’s functionality and have been using it with great success. I even fixed my sweetie’s BMW’s windshield wipers with it (twice, about 4 months apart)! *lol*
Well, at least I think I did. I tapped for them (we were driving down the freeway when they quit!) and within a minute or two of my tapping, they started working again. Of course, they could have been just over heating and after they stopped and then cooled, they went back to working…
But since I believe everything, us included, are all just energy vibrating at different frequencies (as per quantum physics), then consciously manipulating that energy could very well have the positive effects I’ve experienced.
Just thought I’d share this info with you, since I selfishly am wanting to read the next Forgiener novel, and anything that helps you, or makes your life easier will inevitably help you write… Right?? 😉
Oh.. the best site for EFT I’ve found is http://www.eftuniverse.com.
Dang, misspelled Foreigner.. sorry!
I agree with you about EFT. It’s a very good thing, I’ve used it to help with many things.
If I weren’t on the wrong side of a large ocean, I would suggest a Fan Work Day for CJ and Jane, just so they can get back to the business of what we like having them do best: writing stuff for us to read. We don’t like having our authors stressed out by manini problems. Anyone with any l33t home repair skillz, show up one designated weekend and at least get things to the point where they don’t have to worry about the next crisis yet, unless it applies to writing.
Please take that in the spirit in which it was offered, a desire to have the incidental cruft out of your way so that you can go back to your primary work of creating worlds. You should not be involuntarily up to your back ends in repairs!
I wish you could! But at least we think we have the leak corralled—if we can just dry out the floor.
That is a great idea! I’m on the right side of the ocean, fortunately, but a good 4 hour drive away (Bremerton). I am sure my sweetie would come with me to help out, if CJ and Jane wanted though.
That’s very kind—we think we’re on the upside of this, but we’ll remember, if things get crazier!
Just let me know… I’m glad to help out! Like I said, what’s good for you is good for me, your reader! And my sweetie, Lance, agrees!
I’m on the right side of the ocean as well, but the wrong side of the country… Salt Lake is 3 days from here, so you’re likely four… That would be hard to swing, but you keep having problems that I know I can help with… Maybe work will send me to the other coast at some point and I’ll swing by and help.
My pet peeve is toilet cut-offs. A, you have to be a contortionist midget, and B, when you really NEED it to work, it’s frozen with scale. You try turning harder, and surprise! water sprays everywhere.
Second on list is bathroom with ordinary sheetrock ceiling, under upstairs bathroom with elderly plumbing.
These two issues are intimately related…
If you need to twiddle with one of those cutoff valves, especially if you haven’t turned it in a couple of years, WD-40 or penetrating oil is your friend. If the valve doesn’t turn with mild encouragement, give it a shot or two of WD-40 or oil, and let it soak in for several hours before trying it again. I’ve had a valve go leaky and had to replace it because I was too aggressive when it was frozen.
WD40 FTW
Oh yes AbigailM. Been there with my plumbing. In my case I was having a peaceful evening of reading and I kept hearing the sound of dripping, and not finding the source. 10PM The water starts *pouring* through the door frame of the downstairs half bath. At which point I find that the back of the upstairs toilet has cracked. And of course the cutoff was frozen. I put a ruler under the float to cut the water off. Called a friends very skilled husband who bless him came over and got the water safely off and helped me move stuff in the basement room as the water had by then flowed down the inside of the walls to spout out the basement ceiling as well.
I still regard toilets with a certain distrust.
Gah, those goofy little cut off valves are a major buggaboo with plumbing for me too. I made the mistake of touching the ones under my sink in an attempt to work on the faucet that drips, now the VALVE drips. Thank goodness I have so far gotten away with a cheap-fix (cheep chick fix?) by sticking a drip catcher underneath until it re-deposits enough scale to stop the leak!
Do you absolutely trust Eushu with the pet fountain? my old cat, whom Eushu resembles in intelligence and curiosity, used to paddle the water out of the bowl when I wasn’t looking. On the theory that anything is a cat toy if approached properly. Water literally everywhere nearly all the time until I caught him at it.
CJ, my parents’ garbage disposer fell out of the bracket one day last year. The intermittent vibrations and the inertial reaction to the impeller starting caused the whole thing to slowly work loose on the bracket. When we got the disposer back onto the bracket (a two person job for this particular place), I took a socket wrench extension and a rubber mallet and I tapped on the flange on the bracket until tightened securely. No leaks, no drips, no runs. I’ve replaced a garbage disposer several times, in places with and without a dishwasher.
If I were mechanically inclined and had decent vision, I’d offer to help, but (haha) you’d be better off with someone who knows what they’re doing. I do have other skills, however. Also, I’m on the wrong coast. But someday, when I am gainfully employed and replete with filthy lucre, I’d love to attend a con up there.
Meanwhile, best wishes that all goes well. — When I can get a couple of things repaired around here, there will be much rejoicing.
Upcoming this weekend will be a session with the help and manual for WordPerfect, to learn how to do a few things I haven’t quite got a handle on yet. I’ve found an item or two I don’t care for, but on the whole, happier so far than with OpenOffice. We’ll see. Glad for the new, useful tool. I’ll try CorelDraw this weekend also.
My linguist sense is telling me your use of “mouse” there, for a knot from bashing a body part, has some cognate I should know. All I’m coming up with is “muscle,” from “musculus,” because the Latins thought it was like a “little mouse” moving beneath the skin. (As opposed to, say, the small mouse shadow, Usul, on the moon of Arrakis….)
I hate plumbing. I’m no electrician either but at least electricity has the decency to stay in the wires and once fixed it stays fixed – at least in a home environment. You can never trust water. A joint that was fine six months ago can suddenly start leaking. I had a terrible job replacing the workings of a toilet cistern a couple of years ago. The plastic pipe just would not make a decent seal onto the copper riser and kept seeping. Eventually I gave up and covered the join it with electrical type. Between that and the lime scale it’s been fine.
Oh and of course being a modern house built by modern builders to a modern price means that there are no isolator valves on any risers. The only way to stop the flow to the cisterns is to turn off the mains supply and for downstairs joints wait until the upper half of the house has drained out. Which reminds me – I have two tap washers need de-scaling. Something to (not) look forward to :-/
Wow. My typing is bad today.
..Eventually I gave up and covered the joint with electrical tape.
I feel for you – I’m suffering with a very cold flat and no hot water since my central heating boiler broke down on Jan 1. Engineers have been three times to fix it and every time need to get yet another part, which is never in stock, and means another visit. They have promised to fix it today but so far no-one has turned up (it’s 12 noon here). This has also involved me not going in to work for 4 days – fortunately I can work from home but it’s not ideal.
Hope your finger gets better soon!
Happy New Year to you and Jane (and of course the cats) from me and my two rascals.
One does have to be careful with transitioning copper to other materials. @Andruec, are we talking rigid plastic threaded, or it this the new flexible plastic?
Going from copper sweat to threaded-steel requires a bit of care, one has to solder the thread adapter fitting to a straight length (several inches at least) of pipe and *let it cool* before teflon-taping and threading the fitting on; further soldering must take place at a safe remove from said fitting to avoid melting the teflon tape and compromising the threaded connection.
There are relatively new products out, called ‘Shark Bites’, that are meant for easy transition between types of plumbing. They involve plug in fittings that snap on but require a special tool to remove, and may be used between drinking-water quality plastic plumbing, copper, and some steel. Good for people who don’t want to mess about with sweating together different varieties of pipes, and have gotten good reviews also from professional plumbers. When I eventually replace the shower fittings in our bathroom, I’m installing a set of Shark Bite cutoff butterfly valves in the supply lines.
The riser is copper with a dished metal connector welded to the top. The toilet fitting is rigid, thread plastic. A nut on the riser pulls the plastic down onto the metal dished connector. What I found was that the water managed to leak its way back up the threads and appeared at the top of the nut. Rather a curious path actually – you’d almost have expected it to come out of the bottom of the nut :-/
It was only a slow seep so I suppose lime scale would have blocked it fairly quickly but that and/or electrical tape has done the trick for the last couple of years.
Wish I could do more than send “positive waves”. I’m way to far away to help, and our plumber told my wife “don’t let your husband work on the plumbing anymore” LOL. And I didn’t even have to bribe him. 😉