1940's Plumbing

Our house was built in 1940. Before I bought it, 12 years ago, some contractors flipped it, making cosmetic improvements. But, they also cut corners, as I have discovered. When I first moved in there was a leak under the kitchen sink that took a long time for my dad to fix. He finally ended up buying new parts. It seemed like some of the plumbing was new, but not all of it. Ditto to the electrical wires. I am not handy. This fact is something I struggle to accept because I really want to be handy. I want to be self-sufficient. The combination of these things – old house parts and my stubbornness to do it myself – make for a perfect storm in failed projects.

 

We have one bathroom in our house with one large, old clawfoot tub. It has a shower, connected to the faucet, but the small rubber stopped inside the faucet broke in February. We have been bathing ever since. It’s fine, we still get clean, but I’ve really been longing for a shower, especially in the heat of summer. So, I finally bought a replacement faucet/shower combo. I was trying to find a nicer one, with a hand shower component, but either I pay $90 for the same one we have, or I pay $300 for one with a hand shower. So, as you can guess, I bought the cheaper one. It seemed straight-forward enough to install. Just take out the old one, put in the new one. Only, that isn’t how it happened.

 

First, Primero promised to help me do it on Saturday but he then got a better offer from his friend and left. He had started the project and then put the tub back together in haste in order to leave. I was irate. He couldn’t let the project go because the only way to prevent flooding was to turn the water off to the whole house. We have only one shut-off valve. Apparently, turning water off to singular appliances was not common in 1940. So, on Sunday, when Primero and I resumed the work, the water was turned off. The new faucet was installed, the shower hooked up, the curtain restored, only when we turned the water back on the pipe behind the tub leaked. So, Primero tightened it. But, it would not stop leaking. And, I’m not talking a little drip, drip, I’m talking spraying water, causing a leak in his bedroom below. We tried plumbers tape, we tried a special pipe glue. Nada. The leaking persisted. So, what did we do? We installed the chandelier my mom bought for my room four years ago. This we managed to do successfully. And I *love* the light! I can’t wait to paint my bedroom (the only room in the house that has never been painted – in 12 years!) and replace the flooring.

 

Monday I left work early and called a plumber recommended to me by a friend on Facebook. They came right over, a father and son team. The piece that was leaking had been stripped. The only solution was to replace it. Except, this is a piece from 1940. So, like you need a DeLorean to go back in time and find a new one. Ok, not quite, but the plumber told me it would take two days. He did cap the leaky pipe so we could turn the water back on, but we cannot use the tub. We can’t even use the cold water because it could make the other pipe leak. So, we are forced to carry water from the kitchen sink to the bathroom to bathe. I’m glad I know how to take a bucket bath from my time in the Peace Corps, it makes the situation slightly less awkward. Oh, just in case you don’t live on the East Coast, it has been in the 90’s the past few days, we’ve been under and excessive heat warning, so bathing is a necessity.

 

And, just in case that wasn’t enough, school started for Chica Marie on Monday and I had two days of training for work, which always puts me out-of-sort. And, I’ve been trying to handle things with my mom (I will explain more about this later), concerned about how things are going with her. It has been a very long week!