November 29, 2005 :: My kingdom for a pipe wrench

Women like handy men. If you can fix a leak, patch a wall, replace a light fixture or a faucet, women will love you. Something about being useful and working with your hands just turns women on. With that said, for some reason I decided recently to try to fix all the things that need work in my master bath. I am moderately handy, I can figure out a few things, but I always seem to get in trouble.

Once, I had a plumber out for something else, and asked him why my sink faucet always leaked water on top of the sink, and he said the faucet had an internal leak and needed to be replaced. Sounded like something I could do easily (and the parts are relatively cheap, replacement faucets of this type start at $40 and go up to about $120). Also, the taps in my tub/shower needed replacing. I have one of those old style tub fixtures with 3 knobs, where the center knob diverts the water from the tub spout to the shower head. That center knob leaked, so I never got a full pressure shower, and wasted lots of hot water out of the tub spout. I figure, just replacing that will save me money on my water bill. Also, the shower head was old and cruddy, and I wanted one with a hose on it.

Easiest things first, right? I went to Home Depot (twice) and Lowe's (about five times, more on that later) and got some of the parts I needed. Shower heads (for both the master and guest bath), sink faucet, replacement towel bar, shower socket set. Replacing the shower head was relatively easy, although the thing came with two rubber washers that I can't figure out where they fit or why I need them. Oh well.

Next easiest job, replacing the stems on my shower. I'd done this before, on a kitchen sink, and it was a pretty easy wrench job. So I figured, same thing, just bigger parts. Little did I know.

Not as simple of a job as I thought. There are these long round sleeves around shower taps, and not one of my shower sockets came close to fitting inside the tube. So I returned the socket set to Lowe's, hunted around some more, and a while later I found a single socket that was smaller. I also bought a couple of spark plug sockets to boot, just in case they fit. Still, nothing worked. I called every plumbing supply company within 10 miles of my house, and I learned a few things: (1) Like everything else built into my house, the taps are an off-brand (Speakman) that nobody uses or supports anymore, and (2) none of the plumbing supply companies had a shower socket to fit Speakman taps. One suggested I call a plumber, since they were the only people likely to still have the old tools around. Naturally, they had one to recommend. So I broke down and called, kickbacks or no.

The plumber came out last Friday, and was almost completely useless. Although the ticket I called in was very specific, he showed up without the parts and without the appropriate tools. He claimed it wasn't his fault, that he would have been able to get the parts if it wasn't the day after Thanksgiving, that he would come back another day. Of course, that pissed me off. I begrudgingly rescheduled, and then decided I would try the plumbing supply places again myself on Monday, since he wouldn't give up his sources.

This time, I decided to go into the stores myself, with an example shower socket that I knew was slightly too big. One by one, they all shook their heads and said no, they don't come in smaller sizes. The fourth shop I went to looked really small, and the door was locked. Not promising. I peeked in the window, didn't see anyone there but a couple of cats and a caged pit bull. As I walked back to my car, the proprietor drove up. He was a short, squat, hobbit-looking man, talking on a cell phone headset while he motioned me to come in, after he took the dog out of the cage and put her up in the back of the shop.

Clearly this man worked by himself. The shop was overrun with at least 3 or 4 cats, two of whom wanted something from me which I couldn't identify and didn't have. One of those cats only had one eye. I've never seen a one-eyed cat before. Of course, that is the cat who wanted to stay in my face the entire time I was there. I figured this guy had to be either a plumbing savant or a crazy old kook with a bunch of pets for company, and I was just desperate enough to find out which.

After he got off the phone, I explained my problem to him, and he explained a lot of things to me. This is where being part-time handy falls down: lack of the sort of knowledge that comes with experience. He asked me some questions about my configuration, then pulled out an old dusty book and flipped through it until he found a cutaway diagram of my pipe installation. He explained that I was going about it all wrong, that the sleeve has screw threads and should be unscrewed off, that I was going after the wrong nut on the stem, and which nut I should be fitting to, and how I would be able to get to it easily, without special tools, once I got the sleeve off. I swear, this guy was like the Oracle of plumbing. He said he could special-order whatever parts I needed out of one of his catalogs.

So I left there and immediately called the plumbing company to cancel the call for this morning. It was 4:30pm, and they claim they didn't close until 5pm, but they already had their calls routed to their night answering service. I left a message canceling the call (and cursing them out under my breath).

So now, all I need is a pipe wrench that's light enough to handle this sleeve, and I'm in business. Maybe I'm a little handy after all.

posted by Rainmayun at 7:51 AM -