An Honest Plumber?
Delia finally contacted the plumber she has been trying to reach since late last year, Sr. Morales. Always in the past, Delia has spoken with his wife and Sra. Morales has promised to pass the message along ... and that would be the last we would hear of it. Today, though, Delia spoke to the man himself, who eventually called to say he would come out in a few minutes ... and he did.
I immediately knew there was something different about him because Rocky didn't make an uproar. Rocky came out very quietly to investigate, sniffed at his ankles and let him pass. Rocky quickly lost what little interest he showed and retired to his hiding place. It's a good thing this guy didn't come to rob us. Rocky makes more fuss over me.
We had a bad faucet in the kitchen. This time it really was my fault. When you see a faucet on special for $14 at Fedco about a year before they go out of business, you should suspect there is something wrong with it. There was. It had one of those single handle controls and by the time we decided to replace it there was as much water coming out the base of the handle as out of the faucet itself. To compound my error I had installed it myself without the proper tools and I never got the alignment quite right nor did I get everything tightened enough.
I got a replacement faucet at Home Depot after asking a number of people, including a couple of different plumbers, what kind I should get. The commonest suggest was to get the Moen which, at $30, didn't exactly break the bank. In fact that was one of Delia's first objections. She had paid $54 for the faucet on the bathroom sink; how was a $30 kitchen faucet going to be good enough? But Sr. Morales convinced her that not only was it good enough, it was guaranteed for life. Still suspicious, she let him go ahead with the installation, even after hearing that he would charge $50 for the work.
The slow drip of water from the faucet has, over the years, run beyond the cabinet under the kitchen sink to stain the ceiling in the basement. Delia is convinced the whole house is ready to collapse from it. With the new faucet installed, though, the slow flooding should dry up and the problem should vanish except for the existing discoloration. The only other "leak" that Delia was worried about, Sr. Morales explained was due to Cathy not closing the shower curtain when taking a shower. Then Delia brought up our really big problem, the broken hot water pipe.
When the house was built in the early 1950s, the hot water pipe was broken while they were laying down the concrete slab on top of it. It took over four decades for the hot water to break through the concrete and develop enough of a flow to cause a problem. As a stopgap measure, I had a switch installed on the hot water line that I turn on only when I want to take a shower downstairs. It means we only have hot water in the kitchen when I'm taking a shower. That annoys Delia.
I showed Sr. Morales the switch and where the hot water pipe entered the slab, then I showed him the shower stall and I explained how I would like it fixed. The shower stall is shaped like a "C" with the entrance at the southeast and the old fixtures on the south wall. The old fixtures were installed in the early 1950s and were useless. They could be torn out and the water pipes capped where they emerged from the slab. Then hot and cold water pipes could be run through the walls to where the lines go up to the kitchen, tapping off new lines to go to new fixtures on the east wall. The existing plaster board walls lining the shower stall, always a poor choice and deteriorating rapidly, could be replaced with a material that would stand up better to the wet environment. Any openings made in the walls would have to be patched over so that the work was invisible.
He gave us a quote. Delia suspects the price is too high. She is going to think about it. I hope she doesn't think too long. It would be nice to have hot water in the kitchen again.
Comments (5)
When it comes to things like plumbers, electricians, etc, they usually charge a lot. The biggest problem I have though is with timing. If you have to work and you ask a plumber to come at a certain time and he comes three hours late it just doesn't work. Well good luck with your plumber!
I hate plumbing problems. What a headache.
Hope it all works out with the plumbing! I always hate dealing with things like that!
Have fun with your plumbing project. It sounds like an expensive propostion!
We got a visit from the plumber this morning ourselves. Tubby has been having problems with the boilers and with the hot water for the girls downstairs. The plumber suggested that the whole boiler system, which is antiquated, be removed and replaced with a more efficient heating system. Tubby is thinking about it.
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