Tag Archives: plumbing

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Plumbing. My well’s pressure tank has had a slow drip for 18 months now. It’s one of those projects that I knew needed to be taken care of, but there was always something more pressing. Every couple of weeks I’d go down and empty the coffee can that was sufficient to contain the waters. A couple of times recently I found my coffee can full to running over after just a week. Since it’s the kind of thing that feels like it would inevitably let go during Christmas and facilitate a real crisis, I finally called out my usual plumbing outfit to make the fix – the ones who are good and fast, but absolutely not cheap. The thing about home ownership that no one tells you is that it feels like 90% spending money on stuff that’s entirely essential, but in no way is a joy to purchase. Anyway, I’ve got a brand new obscenely expensive pressure tank and associated couplings installed now so I guess that’s my Christmas present to myself.

2. Slack time. It’s not that I hate having slack time. Not really. Slack time through the week is very welcome, mostly. On telework days, there’s always more than enough alternatives to keep my attention until the next Thing To Do shows up in my inbox. When it falls on an “in office” day, though, it does make the time stuck in fluorescent hell drag on indefinitely. I suppose slack is just an occupational hazard this time of year… and with only two office days between now and the end of the year, the annual hazard will fix itself before long. Until then, I suppose the trick remains to look busy enough to avoid falling victim to anyone walking around with end-of-the-calendar-year good ideas.

3. Slowly unwinding. I know I should be happy it seems to be working, but I’m absolutely tired of the pace at which the anxiety causing metformin is slowly working its way out of my system. Six full days from my last dose and I continue to feel slightly less prone to panic as each of those days slips past. That’s not to say that there aren’t still a few bad minutes and hours in the mix. Still, we seem to have crossed some kind of threshold where there’s more good than bad… and that hasn’t been true in a number of weeks. You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I’m just a bit put out that it wasn’t the instantaneous relief I really would have liked to receive.

Finally filtered…

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After weeks of screwing around with companies that apparently weren’t interested in doing business, the large regional plumbing operation I hired last week to put in the new well filter arrived as scheduled this afternoon and did, in fact, install the spin down filter I ordered. After testing, the consensus was that the only thing that needed taken out of the water here was the fine sand that’s endemic to wells in this area. Blame that on having built the homestead here high atop ancient sand and sediment washed down the primordial Susquehanna River when the last glaciers retreated and helped form the Eastern Shore and Chesapeake Bay.

Since they were here and had some time to kill, the two guys doing all the work also drained off the water heater, which has been a settling pond for sand laden water for the last two months. There was some add on fee for that, of course, but given how much sand has been caught in my poor simple Brita filter, getting most of that mess away from the heating element feels like money well spent. As they say, preventative maintenance is almost always more cost effective than emergency maintenance.

My new favorite plumbers weren’t the cheapest by a long shot. From start to finish they answered the phone when I called, arrived when they were scheduled, and did the work they said they were going to do. If that’s not service worth paying for, I guess I don’t know what is.

At the very least, it’s one more thing off my long and growing list of things that need doing around here. My fingers are firmly crossed in hopes this is the start of a trend.

The ghost of plumbers past…

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The fact that there are now ants and ant pieces flowing through my home’s water system amps up the need to find someone qualified to service the system to a pretty high degree of urgency. I was willing to make due with a little fine sediment from time to time. Mostly that meant just clearing the filter more often than I had been previously. Now that fiddling with the filter and draining off the pressure tank a few times doesn’t seem to have satisfactorily resolved the issue, I’m just going to have to accept that the problem is now well beyond my level of competence.

So far, I’ve been wildly unimpressed with the various well drilling/service companies I’ve talked to. Most admitted they were weeks or months behind schedule and promised to call back when they were ready to come have a look with whatever tests, tools, and people they thought they’d need. Over the last quarter of a year, it’s resulted in a lot of phone calls, but no actual action.

While I was fiddling with the pressure tank last night, I stumbled on the original installer’s name and had a blinding flash of the obvious. Thanks to meticulous records from the pervious owner and the internet, I discovered his company is still in business. They’re not drillers, but starting out with someone to look over the pumps and tanks looks like a reasonable place to start. I left a voicemail for him this afternoon in hopes that the draw of revisiting old work might be enough to get more than just a call back. So far I like him better than the rest because thirty minutes later he gave me a firm date and time he’d be there to give the system a good going through.

According to his records, the last time they were on the property was in 2010, after installing the system originally in 2006. I eagerly await the arrival of the ghost of plumbers past with my fingers firmly crossed in hopes that the answer will be something other than, “Nope, drill another one.”

What I learned this week…

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I can cover some basic home maintenance tasks with a degree of competence. Others – like schlepping up the ladder to clean the gutters – I’m more than happy to pawn off on the professionals. The net result is usually something done faster and with less chance of breaking other things in the process than I would be able to manage myself.

Other times, though, instinct tells me I can do a thing – often because I’ve done that thing previously. Sunday, instinct told me that it might just be better to buy a old fashioned standard toilet at Lowe’s and replace the whole 20-year old contraption instead of fiddling with repairs. Especially because the repairs were going to take proprietary parts and be a pain in the ass to complete myself. A straight up replacement would have been almost plug and play and taken no more than 45 minutes.

I ignored my instincts last weekend, ended up calling in a professional for help, and still finished off by buying and installing a brand new toilet. At least this one has reasonably accessible bits and pieces that I can (probably) deal with when the inevitable time comes.

What I learned this week – or what I re-learned for the 247th time – is that when it comes to home repairs, I should always check my first instinct and then go directly where it points. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred that’s where I’m going to end up anyway.

Plumbed…

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Every time I hire a plumber I’m struck with a moment of wondering why I’m paying good money to have someone do things I could do myself. Then I generally remember that I’ve probably tried, and failed, to do the work myself and that’s why I called the plumber in the first place. Yes, they’re expensive. Yes, they disrupt the household. Yes, there are other things I’d rather be spending my money on. Then again, I do like indoor plumbing so there’s the rub.

With time and practice, trial and error, I don’t doubt there’s any system in this house that I couldn’t eventually learn to repair in its entirety. While I have many skill sets, though, plumbing and electrical aren’t currently among them. Maybe they should be, but they’re not.

In most cases it boils down to the value of time. Some small things are easy enough, can be whipped out in an hour and life can return to normal. Others, well, that’s when it pays to know what your own time is worth and be willing to farm out the jobs that are going to eat up too much of it.