27 May 2008

Everybody stand back... I'm goin' in

Well, once again... it's "home repair day" here at the Halls.

Our current bathroom taps... which would not have looked out of place in the home of my distant childhood... will be replaced with a Star-Trekkish Delta faucet from the clearance table mountain at Home Depot.

The shutoffs to the sink appear to be gummed up with mineral deposits (previous owner cheaped out and didn't have a softener), so it'll be an H2O-free zone around here until I'm finished.

If past experience is any indication, I will have at least one equipment, or infrastructure related crisis before I'm through.

Unlike my youngest brother, who, in a display of insane fearlessness... once pulled the the rad and water pump out of his truck in the middle of his driveway in mid-February, I confess to a little trepidation every time I start to "fix" something around here.

Unless Mrs. Neo feels the need to acquire more colourful idiom from my less-civilised bachelor days, she will no doubt head for the hills... or maybe the local library.

Blogging may be light for the rest of the day.

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UPDATE: Okay, halfway there...

So, the old fixture, which, of course, had been welded to the underside of the sink by Oxidato, the god of rust... is finally off. Even the supply lines were calcified into their fittings... (note to self... never, ever cheap out on a water softener).

I am also, surprisingly, for once... for all my contorted wrenching on sharpish metal objects... not covered in blood.

There, of course, has to be at least one glitch.

I discover that I have no silicone to bed the faucet and drain ring, so I have to disassemble, CLR & scrub and reassemble the shutoffs... so that we can turn the water back on while the tap is out. An actual plumber would just torch them off and sweat on a new set... but I get a perverse sort of satisfaction out of salvaging stuff... and if you don't count the labour, I'm saving here too.

Once the fittings have been demineralised, I can see they're pristine... I doubt they've ever been turned to the stops. Now, just gotta go get some goop and put 'er back together.

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