How often have we heard horror stories about something going unexpectedly wrong with the plumbing over the holidays and causing a catastrophic loss of seasonal joy? Ours was self inflicted.

As the four-day weekend of Thanksgiving approached, I had big plans. I was singing “On the four days of toilets, my true love gave to me…” (Sorry. Christmas songs are both more numerous and better than Thanksgiving songs.)

Rose would redirect my enthusiasm to her favorite priority for holiday enjoyment, singing: “A sink and a functional knob…”

I’ll pick up the toilet story another time, because that saga, more an arduous quest to remove stains of moral turpitude than an actual plumbing issue, is ongoing. Things toilet were put on hold for real plumbing.

Our house was built in 1984, and it still has some of the original equipment. That includes both upstairs bathroom sinks, and, given their condition, I’d say that we’ve overspent their lifespan by about five years. That’s how long the master bathroom sink has not had a drain plug, and I’ve been having to monkey with its single handle to keep it mostly working. The guest bathroom sink not only has handle issues, it no longer puts out any hot water and has a big chip out of the enamel.

So we talked ourselves into some holiday plumbing. Rose and I went to the store and picked out a replacement sink and a faucet. Good choices, we thought. How exciting. We decided to do the master bathroom first, for what at the time seemed like good reasons. (Yes, you’re already ahead of me. They were not.)

Thankfully, the one smart choice I made was not to start things off on the first day of a four-day weekend. Instead, I celebrated some of the four days of toilets (story to come) and finally shifted into the theme of “A sink and a functional knob…” on Sunday. My reasoning was sound: If (though why on earth should there be?), just if, there was a problem, wouldn’t it be great if the water only had to be shut off for one night before a professional could come and repair a disaster? Sometimes I am smarter than I look. This was a good decision.

As soon as I began turning off the hot-water valve at the wall below the sink, it began spraying everywhere. Oops. This was not going to be easy. Apparently 37 years of corrosion had not been good for this valve. That was okay, I thought, as I got everything under control and carried on. I had bought new shutoff valves just in case. Another smart decision. (I savor the few that I make.)

I had the old sink out and hauled away into the garage in just over an hour. This was going great. But as I inventoried the new sink, faucet, and drain, and compared them both to the existing fixtures and to the parts I’d had the foresight to buy, it became clear that I had to go back to the store for parts. All home handymen know this rule: You will never have all the parts you need for any big job, no matter how much you plan ahead. Okay, no big deal. I was able to stop off the water at the wall and turn the house water back on. Round 1 goes mostly to me with just a mild unexpected setback.

Time now becomes a blur, because I was juggling a lot of work and timing my trips—yes, trips—to multiple stores for parts around times when I had to go into town anyway and then on top of that trying to keep the water on at home. Three weeks went by.

I’m not going to give you a blow-by-blow account. Suffice it to say that if there was paint on the inside of the cabinet under the sink, it would be blistered off. (I can use spicy language. I did so.) When I finally got the sink, faucet, and drain installed the first time (I think we were at the end of Week 1), Rose and I admired how nice it looked. It looked great. Then I went downstairs to turn the water main on again.

Dear reader, there are only three places where this cockamamy contraption could leak. Can you guess how many leaks there were? Yes—all three places where it could leak were leaking. And, to rub my amateur plumber’s nose in it, each one was leaking for a different reason.

Now, fortunately, I was able to tighten things down so they didn’t leak so bad, and with a big tub placed just so under the sink we could leave the water on to the whole house as long as I remembered to dump the bucket every day or two. (Pro tip: This helps retain some polish on the easily tarnished bliss of marriage.)

Of course, I needed more parts. I also needed a new tool—a special puller that could remove a brass ferrule compression ring corroded and fused onto a half-inch copper pipe. I had a particularly satisfactory shopping experience when I found and obtained that, by the way. Later, when I got home and had joyfully unwrapped it, it felt so good to wield that sucker and slay the ferrule dragons and finally get both new shutoff valves installed leak free. (That was my dream phrase—“leak free.” It rolls off the tongue with a magical, dreamlike sound.)

And, I didn’t know it, but in my multiple trips to multiple stores I learned that I also needed plumber’s putty. I’d never heard of this stuff! It’s a small miracle in a yoghurt cup. I absolutely love shopping in a hardware store where the clerks know their shit—and they know yours, too. At Sampson’s Hardware an old hand at plumbing told me how he thought I could fix the leak in the damned drain (one of the more stubborn sources of paint blistering language yet invented). And lo, I was introduced to plumber’s putty. It’s like plastic clay, and you roll and shape it to serve when it’s squeezed down as a gasket at those times when just a gasket isn’t cutting it. A small ring of this magical compound sealed up the top of the drain just great. But it turned out that wasn’t the only problem with this drain. From underneath, it still leaked like there was a thunderstorm going on above. That was my last straw. I’d conquered both leaking valves and they were dry. But I couldn’t face this seemingly new angle on the damned drain.

So I quit. Just for the day, but it felt good. The water was back on in the house, and the bucket could handle the remaining leak for awhile. I felt like I’d gone 12 rounds in a boxing ring. I am too big to work well under a sink. Flailing around like a demented contortionist, stuffed halfway into a raised, irregular box and bashing into everything with sharp corners everywhere…is not as fun as it sounds. Blistering all the paint off did not improve this.

As I replaced those shutoff valves at the wall, I noticed something really interesting. Those plumbers of old were real men. Nothing but naked metal for those giants of yore. I imagine them all muscle bound and hairy, wielding nothing but big, heavy wrenches and going home bone dry, by god, when the day’s work was done. With plumber’s cracks like the grand CANYON (…CANYON…canyon…). And none of today’s sissy weakness with those hifalutin’ sealant products. But I am not one of those muscle-y giants. I have my pipe joint compound and my teflon tape—and now my plumber’s putty. And some day, I, too, will go home bone dry. Just not most days.

What finally fixed that damned drain? Holiday elves. As I left it the final time in disgust, I cranked one more time very hard on the big nut on the underside. Water squeezed out all around and kept on leaking into the bucket. It seemed to be slow enough again to let it sit in the dark and think about the error of its ways. And, sweet December miracle! The next day, it was dry. On the day after that, I gave it a full drainage workout—full basin, overflowing sink, and a full basin held for hours. And it was still dry! A day later, the dream of welcome dryness continued, and I cleaned up my tools and my mess. Let that be a lesson to me.

Plumbers earn their money. I don’t want to be one when I grow up.

Of course, now that I know how to do this right, we’ll be doing the other sink after I’ve healed—but before my newfound skills rust.

 

P.S. Last night I told Rose that I liked using our new sink—that it was like a hotel sink. She asked “Why, because it works?” Ouch.