I know that I've mentioned that my husband is in the Air Force. That means that occasionally he leaves. They send him someplace. Sometimes that someplace is far far away (Kyrgyzstan), and sometimes rather close (Alabama). We'll as a military wife, I've gotten pretty good at 'fending for myself'. Well, the ability to text message my Dad a picture of the problem is my secret! Trav had mentioned that it would be cool while my parents were visiting, having my Dad put a new knob on one of our outdoor spigots. We remembered the request on his last day in town, and the one we picked up at Ace, which ended up being the wrong size. So I took it back and got the correct size, but it still wouldn't go on...the spigot was stripped.
What's a girl to do? Crawl under her house of course! And send a picture of it to her Dad!
I'll admit, I didn't take a lot of pictures, but basically (after I turned off the water) I had to cut the original pipe (it was the flexible polypropylene pipe) off and then unscrew the original spigot, pull it out, put the new pipe on and vola! Fixed... actually, it didn't quite go that easy, but those were the steps that got it to work...
So, this is the tool that SAVED me... I had originally tried to just use those clamps that you tighten by screwing them down... Ya, didn't work. The tubing was to hard, and the clamps caved in on themselves. This little crimp-er thing is the best $40. bucks I spent... maybe ever.
I am military wife- here me roar!
(is it bad that I've fixed more things in our house that Travs has...)
I decided it was a good thing that I decided to just replace the whole thing instead of pounding the handle on, or just using pliers to turn it on or off.... it wasn't until I got the old out out that I saw the ONE INCH GASH that was on the upper side of it! No wonder our water bill was so stinking high, it has been leaking for who knows how freaking long.
Oh ya... did I forget to mention that it was POURING RAIN the whole time I was trying to fix it... this picture just doesn't do justice to the PUDDLES that were forming....
Ok, so spring is rainy.. but spring also brings some of my favorite flowers.
I guess they day didn't end so bad, I preformed my first ever plumping repair, with only a few little hiccups, and my favorite (purple) smell good flower's bloomed....
Way to rock the repairs!!! I'm an AF wife, too, but luckily (knock on wood and cross all my fingers and throw some salt over my shoulder) Tim isn't gone too often or too long, but it almost never fails that something will break or bust while he's gone. I'm glad you have your Dad to talk you through!
ReplyDeleteI don't want to alarm you, but the "gash" in the pipe looks like a "bust" instead. Does it freeze where you are? If it does, you might want to invest in some of the foam wrap for your pipe. I live in Charleston, SC but still had to wrap ours to keep it from busting again (ours looked just like yours).
Good for you! I'm a military-wife as well (well, Reserves/Contractor-wife now, I guess), and I also fixed our drippy sinks when my husband was gone for five weeks. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do!
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