Plumbing - Uhg!!

There is a reason that plumbers make so much money. Plumbing sucks! I started a small plumbing job downstairs on Saturday. It should have taken, oh, 3 hours. Famous last words. It is now Wed, and I'm still working on it! UUhg! Water is a funny thing. It does not want to go through the pipes that you connect for it. Noooooo. It wants to leak all over your new drywall and turn it into mud! You have to go to extreme and sneaky lengths to trick it, yes I said trick it. You have to become an expert in solder, and fittings, and compression joints, and PVC glue, and finnessing the old guys at the plumbing store so they'll give you free stuff. And still a small job is going to cost $100+ bones just to get started because you have buy the copper, and the torch, and the special doo-hickies that connect one doo-hicky to another. And you can't weld copper to galvanized steel, and well, you should remove all the steel pipe in your house and replace it with copper, and wait.... Now there's pex!

(....Huge uhg!....)

If you are stupid enough to actually undertake your own plumbing project (I did and yes I'm that stupid), a couple words of wisdom from one who has "been there, screwed that up".

First, take digital photos of your project, and take them with you to the hardware or plumbing store. Showing a plumbing expert what you're working with and what you want to do is way more effective than saying, "I'm trying to put plumbing stuff from the one plumbing thing over to the other plumbing thing and was wondering how to get the one doo-hickey connected to the other doo-hickey, and what doo-hickeys I need in the middle....". He'll look at you blankly for a few seconds trying to figure out just how stupid you really are. Chances are what you're trying to do is not that complicated. But without knowing how to speak plumber-ese, you're sunk without a picture. Instead hand him your digital camera with the picture in the view finder, and say "How do I do that?".

Second, Take your time estimate (mine was, oh, 3 hours), and write it on a piece of rubber tubing. Nail one end of it to your house and anchor the other end to a passing high-speed frieght train. Wait a few minutes and that's how much you'll need to pad your estimate. Take my "oh, 3 hours". Who woulda guessed that 5 days later I'd still be messing with it?! Not me.....

Third, pex pex pex pex pex. Did I mention pex? Never ever EVER use copper again! Pex is simple, it's beautiful. No gluing, no welding or soldering, no mess, and best of all, no leaks. The guys at the plumbing store will look at you with new respect because, well, you're into pex.

Fourth, call the plumber, you idiot! Swallow your pride, and pony up the coupla-hundred bones it will cost to get a plumber to do the work. Then recapture your life, and never make this mistake again. (This one is mostly directed at myself)