Monday, May 18, 2009

Two steps forward... one step back

Ben, my stucco guy, was having truck problems so he couldn't come today to finish the trim around the front door and continue finishing sheet rock. I worked on my software project with my friend Roger Gertz in the morning and ran some errands in the early afternoon. I planned to meet Howell King - our plumber - late in the afternoon here at the house to hopefully solve a water leak inside the wall behind our infamous Interstate-24 sanded (patent pending) washing machine.
For the last few days Alexis and I had noticed water on the floor coming out from under the washing machine and vanity. Last night we actually saw water FLOWING out from under the sheet rock behind the washing machine when the machine was discharging water. For sometime we had had a sewer gas smell in the utility room and this problem needed to be resolved as well... today was the day.
Howell arrived as scheduled and he began tearing into the wall to find the problem. As time progressed the hole got bigger and bigger. We put the washer in the discharge mode and finally found the leak... water was gushing out of the drain line just beyond the washing machine trap. I was hoping Howell had forgotten to glue a joint or the original PVC pipe was defective or cracked so the repair would be his responsibility.
NO SUCH LUCK!BUMMER!
Yours truly had screwed not ONE but TWO screws into the drain line while attaching the base cabinets to the plumbing wall in the kitchen which backs up to the utility room (with faux pas like this it's no wonder that I was able to perfect a technique to automatically sand home appliances using only the Interstate pavement!).
Soooo... the needed repair is on ME! It was bad enough that it was MY fault but Howell didn't have to gloat about it! Wipe that silly grin off your face, King!Unfortunately he didn't have all the needed parts and will have to come back tomorrow afternoon to finish the plumbing job. Then I have to re-sheet rock behind the washer and the vanity. If it ain't one thing, it's another. The silver lining to this mess is that this repair will solve the sewer gas problem too!

No comments: