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osodecanelaIf you are easily offended, best to bypass this post.
Two older gay men live in this home, and when shit happens, we get to deal with it. Some stuff we hire out. (Like taking down the dead 120' tall Doug fir tree that was 10 feet from the house.) Other things, we roll up our sleeves. Today was a day for rolling up my sleeves and pulling on rubber gloves.
I wasn't always willing to take home projects on like this. It wasn't something I learned about as a kid. Neither one of them ever took on a serious home repair project. However, when we moved to the lake almost 5 years ago, we remodeled a kitchen and I got a stiff dose of sweat equity working alongside our contractor. If I could learn to do demolition and re-frame walls, I can figure out how to clear a clogged pipe.
We have two full baths in this house. One in the main house, the other in the building were the kitchen is. Yes, the kitchen is in the a separate building. Midnight snacks always involve slippers and at times, a winter coat. The bath in the kitchen building is cramped and dark, and frankly, needs to be redone. The tub is never used and the throne is ancient and persnickety. Despite replacing the whole flapper mechanism twice, there are still times the flapper doesn't seat and the water continues to run. My husband and I know to stand there and wait to hear that the water stops running. Guests are another story. 6 months ago after a horrid water bill, LJ turned the water off to that toilet and we've had every one use the master bathroom in the house.
Well, night before last the throne in the master was hopelessly clogged and after a flush filled with water not quite to the rim. Plunging was not effective, I decided to close the lid and give it a couple of hours for the water level to drop. It was late, so I left it for the morning. Come 7 am, the later level was unchanged and after the plunging from the evening before, as opaque as mud. I padded off to the tool shed for the drain snake, but after an hour of trying, could not negotiate the ess shaped bend in the snake. It was too thin and too flexible. Time to hit the YouTube videos for suggestions.
First however was turning on the water to the other toilet.
The long and short of it, Irealized learned I needed some other type of pipe auger, or I was going to wind up having to unbolt and pull the toilet off of the floor, which was more than I wanted to deal with. Fortunately, my friend, the retired winery engineer was still in town, having delayed his cross country trip for the holidays. He's gotten to the point where his tool collection, is better labeled a tool library. He was out yesterday, but I was welcome to run by this morning to get the tools I needed. Unfortunately, the closet auger, which was what I thought I was on my way to borrow, was not what he had, but there were two other pipe snakes, both more rigid than mine, that might get the job done. Took me two hours and multiple attempts, but indeed it got the job done, without an expensive house call from a plumber. It may have taken up most of my day today, getting the drain cleared and then cleaning up both myself and the bathroom floor, washing towels and the bath mat and all the other things that were dirtied in the process, but all and all, I'm a happy camper this evening,
Two older gay men live in this home, and when shit happens, we get to deal with it. Some stuff we hire out. (Like taking down the dead 120' tall Doug fir tree that was 10 feet from the house.) Other things, we roll up our sleeves. Today was a day for rolling up my sleeves and pulling on rubber gloves.
I wasn't always willing to take home projects on like this. It wasn't something I learned about as a kid. Neither one of them ever took on a serious home repair project. However, when we moved to the lake almost 5 years ago, we remodeled a kitchen and I got a stiff dose of sweat equity working alongside our contractor. If I could learn to do demolition and re-frame walls, I can figure out how to clear a clogged pipe.
We have two full baths in this house. One in the main house, the other in the building were the kitchen is. Yes, the kitchen is in the a separate building. Midnight snacks always involve slippers and at times, a winter coat. The bath in the kitchen building is cramped and dark, and frankly, needs to be redone. The tub is never used and the throne is ancient and persnickety. Despite replacing the whole flapper mechanism twice, there are still times the flapper doesn't seat and the water continues to run. My husband and I know to stand there and wait to hear that the water stops running. Guests are another story. 6 months ago after a horrid water bill, LJ turned the water off to that toilet and we've had every one use the master bathroom in the house.
Well, night before last the throne in the master was hopelessly clogged and after a flush filled with water not quite to the rim. Plunging was not effective, I decided to close the lid and give it a couple of hours for the water level to drop. It was late, so I left it for the morning. Come 7 am, the later level was unchanged and after the plunging from the evening before, as opaque as mud. I padded off to the tool shed for the drain snake, but after an hour of trying, could not negotiate the ess shaped bend in the snake. It was too thin and too flexible. Time to hit the YouTube videos for suggestions.
First however was turning on the water to the other toilet.
The long and short of it, I
