F-bombs aplenty

Home improvement sucks. Not the TV show, real life projects. The kitchen faucet has been leaking for weeks. It was getting to where I had to change towels every couple of hours to contain the leak and clearly time for a replacement.

Stimulus funds in hand, we descended on the big box hardware store to find a faucet the wife liked. It was supposed to rain all day yesterday (it didn’t), I decided Sunday was the day. Things started out bad and got worse. The hot water valve was stuck and I couldn’t get he water shut off. Finally, after 45 minutes and a call to my home improvement guru, I could move to the next step.

Why is it real spaces under a sink never look like the wide open spacious areas depicted in home improvement shows and YouTube videos? Real life plumbing is dank, dark, and cramped. Stuff is corroded and there is little opportunity to get leverage because of space.

Our faucet was the single spindle design, all the water lines going into a central pillar. I got the plate undone with the expected amount of effort, frustration, and minimal muttering. The central nut, the one holding the faucet to the sink, was another matter.

I mentioned there was a leak right? Guess where that water was going? Guess who bought the cheapest model of faucet seven years ago when we moved in here? Guess what is clearly just a brass plated nut? Guess what was corroded in place? More effort, more, frustration. Muttering moved to outright cursing. More calls to my home improvement guru. I even enlisted the wife’s help. The thing would not budge.  I went and bought a heavy duty basin wrench to see if that would help. I was afraid my old one, likely Chinese made, would snap with the torque my old-man body was putting on the tool.

I started eyeing the sink mounts. I am not yet prepared to take out the sink.  I went to the neighbors’ to see if they had a piece of pipe to use as a pry bar to garner more leverage. Nope.  I sprayed the evil connection with PB Blaster. It still wouldn’t budge. More cursing. I am getting sick of things at this point, almost four hours into the project. Faced with admitting failure and having to call a plumber on Monday, I called my son-in-law to see if his younger, 6’2” frame could budge the recalcitrant nut.

Still Nope. In frustration, he said why not,  and we clamped a big old pipe wrench onto the faucet itself and gave it a twist. It moved. I crawled back underneath the sink and put the wrench on the frozen nut. We twisted from the top and bottom and finally freed the piece o’crap faucet. Hooray, it only took four hours to do a 40 minute job.

The wife cleaned the sink back under the old faucet while I prepared the new one. I took about 35 minutes to put in the new faucet, mostly because I mixed the hot and cold lines and had to switch them. I didn’t even curse over that mistake.  It didn’t even irritate me, I was too close to finishing.

We have a new faucet and it doesn’t leak and most importantly, the wife is happy. On the other hand, every time I get one project done, she adds three more to the list.

Oh, and not only is today Star Wars Day, it is my youngest granddaughter’s birthday. New relaxed rules means we can see her on her big day. Life is good.