Owning a house has its ups and downs.
A week ago I noticed that my water heater was leaking. Hell, my brother is a welder, he can just weld the crack right? Well after talking to my neighbor, ummm no... water heaters can't be welded. They have a ceramic or glass tank liner, and if the outer metal tank is rusting... that means there is a crack in the tank liner... or one of the likely number of valves are leaking. So I went shopping for a water heater all weekend, with my dad.
That's one of the up sides of owning a home. As a son, I get to do things with my dad. I know I find his ways about him to be a bit slow, but we manage... as I just assume things will take at least an hour longer than normal. Plus I think he gets some joy out of helping, as he's able to teach things to me that he never found time for before, it would seem to me.
So anyway, it took us all day to install the appliance, including two trips to the hardware store.
Point of advice. If you ever turn off the water to your entire house and drain the pipes, turn on all your faucets before restoring water to the system. If you don't the air will be trapped within the system by the water pressure. When you go to drain the air all at once, you can end up busting a weak pipe or shutoff valve.
So last night I enjoyed home ownership by replacing the shutoff valves for my kitchen sink. Which leads me to a realization I must keep reminding myself about the employees at Home Depot. They aren't construction contractors, they likely don't know anything about the stuff they sell. They're similar to those computer techs you see at CompUSA or Best Buy. They make their $6-8 an hour, and their company doesn't provide any training, just like the rest of us.
Another point of advice, there are two types of shut off valves. One is called a compression valve, which uses the compression of a nut onto the valve to clamp down onto the copper pipe. The other is screwed on, and then soldered.
Compression valves rock.
That's one of the up sides of owning a home. As a son, I get to do things with my dad. I know I find his ways about him to be a bit slow, but we manage... as I just assume things will take at least an hour longer than normal. Plus I think he gets some joy out of helping, as he's able to teach things to me that he never found time for before, it would seem to me.
So anyway, it took us all day to install the appliance, including two trips to the hardware store.
Point of advice. If you ever turn off the water to your entire house and drain the pipes, turn on all your faucets before restoring water to the system. If you don't the air will be trapped within the system by the water pressure. When you go to drain the air all at once, you can end up busting a weak pipe or shutoff valve.
So last night I enjoyed home ownership by replacing the shutoff valves for my kitchen sink. Which leads me to a realization I must keep reminding myself about the employees at Home Depot. They aren't construction contractors, they likely don't know anything about the stuff they sell. They're similar to those computer techs you see at CompUSA or Best Buy. They make their $6-8 an hour, and their company doesn't provide any training, just like the rest of us.
Another point of advice, there are two types of shut off valves. One is called a compression valve, which uses the compression of a nut onto the valve to clamp down onto the copper pipe. The other is screwed on, and then soldered.
Compression valves rock.