Plumbing

It began, as all these sorts of things do, with an innocent remark, “The sink in my bathroom seems to be leaking a little. Could you look at it when you get a chance?”

As every married man knows, real message was, “There's water under the sink which can only get worse by the minute. Declare a crisis and call 911. NOW!”

I dutifully went to inspect the errant sink and did indeed find water under the cabinet. Hardly a gusher, more like an intermittent drip. The little arm that raised and lowered the stopper needed tightening and that seemed to fix it.

But, of course, it didn't.

“That stopper doesn't stop anything and needs a new one.” 

OK, that shouldn't be too difficult

So off to Home Depot for a new drain and stopper.

But, of course, it was. To separate the pipes the hoses had to be disconnected and the sink lifted out.

Once the sink was out I realized it was past its Best By date and needed replacing as long as I had it all apart.

So off to Home Depot for a new sink.

Back in the bathroom the new sink turned out to be an oval unit rather than the round one I thought I selected. I had carefully matched all the numbers but still got it wrong.

So off to Home Depot for a new new sink.

I realized that the card with the item number for the oval sink was next to the round sink in the display and only by carefully checking the small print did I find the correct part number. The lady at the Returns counter was very nice and I checked out with the new new sink. And a couple of new work lights I saw along the way.

I spread the adhesive on the new new sink, set it into place, checked the alignment and all was well. Until I bent over to check the clearance from below. The new new sink's drain was ~2 ½” over from the old sink and didn't align with the drain pipe coming out of the wall.

So off to Home Depot to see what fittings I would need to bridge the gap. I think the checkout woman was beginning to think I'm stalking her.

OMG, they have a flex pipe for just such problems as I have. Think of the flex straws you used to suck up chocolate milk when you were a kid.

Rushing home with the solution in hand I found that there was not enough room and not enough flex. I was able to force it together but it leaked worse than when I started.

The solution was simple, cut the drain pipe coming out of the wall and install a new slip joint. Simple but one miscalculation and it was going to be tearing out the wall time.

I called Matt at Matthew's Plumbing and asked Matt to drop by at his earliest convenience. As Dirty Harry put it, “A man's got to know his limitations.”

At least the drive to Home Depot is scenic.

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