Yeah - that was good. The guy's effing awesome and he's been back since the porch redoing to do other projects in our house, though no other comedic recurrences that I can recall off hand. Which aren't really necessary when you're doing something as awesome as building us a bar.
Love that guy.
Well, we have another instance of comedian contractors except this time it's plumbing and also I don't think they were trying to be funny. Or smart. Or even - plumbers.
Basically, I think the guy who plumbed our house was...shall we say...NOT ALIVE IN THE BRAINS.
Have I ever told you that none of our plumbing was properly connected?
Like, when we moved in we realized - after three weeks, mind you - that the shower drain in our bathroom and the waste pipe under our house were not connected to one another. No gasket, no nothing. Just water going down the shower drain and some of it going IN the pipe below and some of it going AROUND the pipe below and then into our basement where EW.
That was a fun moment of discovery.
Particularly because it happened as Bubba was leaving for work and just went into our EW basement to double check the timing on the sprinkler so that we weren't spraying water all over our new neighbors only to find that YAY we were spraying water all over our new basement.
HOORAY.
Later I found that the J trap under our kitchen sink wasn't screwed in tight and that water had been dribbling out for however long and had completely warped the cabinet base.
HOORAY AGAIN.
Though, that incident prompted me to go check our bathroom sink's piping only to find that YEP SAME DEAL IN HERE, so I tightened that piping, too, and then spent a long time with my fist in the air swearing all my swears in unison.
It was a time of great shrieking and furious anger. Also, throwing of everything under the sink(s).
Well, that brings us to two weeks ago when, as I was landing in San Diego International Airport on my way home from my lovely, relaxing, BBQ-eating-until-I-was-full-for-four-days trip with Africankelli, I received a text from Bubba:
"Don't use the washer when you get home."
Um, kay. "Dare I ask why?"
"There's a leak."
SUNUVAMUTHEREFFINGBITCH!
*Woman next to me in the tiny ass airport lounge stares at me with disgust probably because of my loud swearing and fist waving*
Anyway, I called a new plumber from the airport so that he could come inspect this leak. And inspect he did! And tell us that we had to get into the wall he did!
And so rip out the wall we did.
 |
| Oh wow. There's bead board under the drywall. Big surprise. |
Which - as awful as that sounds - was not that bad nor was it something we were opposed to doing.
In fact, when he recommended opening up the wall, I believe I startled him with my enthusiastic, "Awesome! OK!" because Bubba has had that laundry room marked for destruction since we moved in six years ago.
Something about things being "ALL WRONG. WHO WOULD DO THIS?" and such.
 |
| Wrong things: conduit outside the wall, drain pipe outside the wall, outlets outside the wall - ALL THINGS OUTSIDE THE WALL. |
But, whatever, dude was glad that I was not only awesomely excited to open up the wall but that we were going to do that demo work for him so he could just swoop in later and fix the leak.
Well, I'll let you guess what we found when we opened the wall this weekend.
 |
| It wasn't a fucking pot of gold, I'll tell you that. |
Go on, guess...I'll wait...
...come on...you know...
YES!
 |
| Oh for reals. |
That's right - the sunuvabitching pipe was not connected properly.
I'll just wait while you let that sink in.
Drain pipe from washing machine not connected to waste pipe in wall of house.
WHAT IN THE ABSOLUTE HELL, PEOPLE?
For reals, we nearly pooed when we saw that.
And the plumber (who we LOVE) actually laughed out loud. And then he fixed the PANTS off of it.
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| I don't understand - all pipes run in a continuous connected line? This must be new technology. |
LET US NOT FORGET.
Also, let us soon wash clothes without flooding our driveway. Amen.
Soooo... What you're saying is: *Maybe* it *does* pay to have inspectors 'n sh*t come out and LOOK AT the sh*t that's been done to your house, right?
ReplyDeleteI make note of this primarily b/c we've had sh*t done to OUR house - "sans building permits and inspections" and yada-yada - primarily b/c we DON'T want our house "Re-assessed" and have our Property-Taxes jacked-up thru the friggin' stratosphere... (And Yes, that is EXACTLY what they do!!!)
JayZus! What a friggin' NIGHTMARE!!!
We DID have an inspector come and *expensively* "inspect" our house before we closed on it - which is, yes, the law. But, it was during the housing boom and I suspect he had a lot of other houses to inspect, so when, like, the roof was intact and there weren't any dead hookers in the closets, he called it good and strode out with his fat check.
DeleteMotherfuckersonofawhore! I would be so so SO pissed about all of that.
ReplyDeleteSeriously.
What the hell were people thinking when they built that house? Not that new construction is any better...we have fixed so many random things in our house and it was only built in 1992.
::sigh::
Since this rig is so old (100), most of the plumbing was put in after the fact - but someone not so bright and, I'm going out on a limb here - NOT A PLUMBER.
DeleteWhen we bought a 100 year old house, we sort of resigned ourselves to having to basically reconstruct it one stick at a time, but didn't really think we'd have to be doing stupid shit like CONNECTING PIPES.
*sigh* is right.
Under normal circumstances, this would make me feel all smug-like and I'd make some quip about how it must suck to be a homeowner. But. I just bought me a new house and I close in 3 weeks.
ReplyDeleteCrap.
My advice? Make sure your inspector is thorough and that you get the sellers to fix any and all things he comes back with. Also - congrats! I've loved being a homeowner WAY more than I loved being a renter, even when shit like this happens.
DeleteDon't you have to get a home inspector to come and check for things like that before you buy a house? Surely some of these "not-so-connected" pipes and drains would have been evident.
ReplyDeleteSure do. And I would think the same thing. Though it seems that the inspector may also not have been alive in the brains and really just more interested in collecting his fee.
DeleteThat is distressing. Apparently you need an inspector to inspect the inspector.
DeleteWell then that makes our deck project seem less scary. Considering that while Matt was digging around the foundation of our house he discovered a LOT of empty liquor bottles. So this tells me that whoever built and/or did lots of repairs to our house was an alcoholic and was one on the job. YAY. It actually explains a lot.
ReplyDeleteI also am dreading our laundry sink project (which, who am I kidding? Will probably never happen) because our hot/cold water are backwards, the drain was installed wrong so when the sink fills, it leaks from the bottom? Also? The drain on the right tub of the sink doesn't drain at all. Which, we don't know why- everything is hooked up. It's so strange it makes me scared.
Well. That's super. I mean, not that I have experience with finding, like, whole buildings precariously leaning because of complete lack of inner support systems (our 100+-year-old shed) or rags stuffed into a hole holding the pipes leading into the kitchen (thanks, least-handy father-in-law in the world!) or . . . well. I understand. Believe me. And I dread each and every thing we have to do here, even if it seems like a small thing because it always turns into something not at all small. Surprises are so not fun when it comes to house maintenance.
ReplyDeleteOh man I know we have lots of this shit in PA at our house. Just can't wait to check out all the broken crap when we get back. Last year, our kitchen drain was leaking for like a year under the house, and by "leaking" I mean the pipe had disintegrated and the sink water was just going into the ground under the house and molding the basement. Joy.
ReplyDeleteIt is nice having a landlord and being a renter here. I just call her and "say shit's broken, come fix it or we aren't paying rent". OK I don't actually say that because the landlord is really nice, but I could if I wanted.
Miss you and Bub.
wait. You mean you actually have to connect the pipes?
ReplyDeleteOK. This is a random question. I know you get lots of those so if you don't have time to answer, I totally understand. I noticed that you have dark stained hardwood floors. I was wondering if you think they are 1) hard to keep clean AND 2) hard to maintain.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if it's not too much trouble... what kind of wood is it?
We're in the midst of picking hardwood and all the grownups are trying to dissuade me from dark.
Thanks!
Big Fan,
denverbrunette (at) yahoo (dot) com
No prob, Julia - I love the floors but, yes, let me answer your questions:
Delete1. Yes. Much like black cars (which I also love) they are hard as FUCK to keep clean.
I did not realize this when I got them and now I'm trying to figure out if I could handle it if I were to re-floor the whole house in this color wood per my original plan. The deal is that the dark color shows dirt, dust and hairs (thank you blonde dog, part white cat and part blonde ME) like a sunuvabitch. Though, much like a black car, when they're clean they're GORGEOUS.
2. No. They aren't hard to maintain AT ALL because there is no maintenance because they're bamboo. They're super durable (I stomped around on the sample in the store in my stilettos to make sure they could handle the madness), resist scratches like a muther and clean up quick with a damp (but not wet) mop.
Meanwhile, if I were to go back and do it all over again, I'd probably pick the same color and definitely the same material because I love it. Though - this also goes for my black car. I love black cars. I love black floors. And that's as far as I'm going to go with that because I'll get myself into trouble ;)
Well after all that happened, hope everything is well now with your plumbing system :-)
ReplyDelete