One of my top rules for
home owning is never do anything with electricity or water.
Because for
me personally, I have no idea what I’m doing with the electrical or
plumbing in my house. I’m not all that much of a DYI type of guy. I’ll
paint. Beyond that I’m not that much of a fixer of things unless it is
really really easy. There are probably more things I could do but better
to play it safe.
I violated that rule the a couple of weeks
ago. My bath tub drain was running slowly. I’d gone out and gotten drain
cleaner. Used that a couple of times. It helped a little but not all
that much.
I then looked down the drain. I noticed that there
was something stuck in it. It was a piece of soap. I thought maybe I
could poke it out with a coat hanger. The soap was too hard. I couldn’t
make a dent in it. Then I tired using boiling water on it. That didn’t
seem to do much with it either.
I decided that I would try a
screw driver. I thought I would just push down on the soap and see if I
could break it up. The first pushed didn’t do anything. I tried again
and all of a sudden the soap broke. I turned on the faucet and the water
ran just fine. I then went down stairs and saw the water coming out of
the dinning room ceiling. I did certainly clear the drain up.
This
was the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. I put a call in that
night to Michael and Son. I didn’t need emergency service I just wanted
to be first on the list to be called the next day. I did get a call
early the next morning. The would not be able to get anyone out to my
house until the following Wednesday. They did say if it was an emergency
they could get someone out earlier. I said it wasn’t.
I set up
all sorts of fans to dry out the dinning room ceiling. I didn’t want any
mold to grow. I dried it out. But the next day I noticed that it seemed
to be wet again. It turns out that the tub faucet leaks. I put a towel
down and then a Tupperware container to catch the water. I was surprised
how much water filled the container.
The appointment was for
Wednesday afternoon. I had a 2-6 window. He arrived around 3. I told him
what happened. I also told him I’d cleared out the front bedroom closet
in case he needed to use that to get the plumbing in the bathroom. I do
not have an access panel. He said he would go through the dinning room
ceiling. I also asked him to fix the leak in the tub faucet.
It
took about two hours for him to do everything. In the end he had to run a
snake through the bath tub drain because it was still running slow. I
thought this would cost thousands upon thousands of dollars. It turned
out not to be all that bad. The thing is I would have had to have
someone come in and snake the tub drain even if I’d some how gotten the
piece of soap out. And I’m glad I discovered the dripping faucet and had
it fixed.
I still have to get the dinning room ceiling
repaired. Michael and Son is going to do that too. It will probably cost
a little more with them. But not having to find someone else to come
makes up for that. I’m even going to ask how much it would cost for them
to install ceiling fans downstairs.
So from now when it comes to electricity and water it’s complete and total hands off.
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