The joy of home improvement projects is captured in this TikTok

[anon65652885]

@VeronicaConnor

At noon, you see those same people again- still enthusiastic, but a little disillusioned. This time they’re buying five of every plumbing fitting so they don’t have to come back.

At 4pm, the same people again, now staring at the plumbing aisle in bewilderment.

My former self feels seen.

It has now been (checks poker chips on desk) two years and three months since my last attempt at plumbing. I sometimes feel the pull, but then I remember the adventures of trying to work out which fittings are metric in a fifty-year-old house.

If it involves connecting pipes, I just call a plumber now. My whole family gets to stay sane and have hot showers the very same day.

[Bonivus_elderheart]

@MadLibrarian

And every fixture gets a good cutoff valve for both hot and cold water (especially the tub), so I can replace the faucets when they crap out with something that isn’t El Cheapo house brand, and don’t have to cut off water to the whole house.

I tried to have that done when I had both bathrooms remodeled, I really did. Apparently, that’s just not something that’s done in residential plumbing, unless you are some kind of mutant. But things just spiraled out of my control. That’s on the list of “things what can use improvement when time and funds permit” for me.

@VeronicaConnor

@MadLibrarian

AFAIK, there is no well-respected replacement for a toilet flush valve, all the ones I’ve used have tanked within 5 years.

No kidding. You remove the one from the 1960s that lasted almost 70 years with a brand new one, and the new one lasts five years.

If that.

I’ll also state for the record that the system that American Standard uses on their Champion series toilets is… very finicky and does not like being adjusted at all, especially if you’ve had to replace the sealing ring on it because the one that came with the tank was defective and started leaking after a year.

(When I get it to properly flush though, it’s fantastic.)

[MadLibrarian]

@Bonivus_elderheart

@MadLibrarian

And every fixture gets a good cutoff valve for both hot and cold water (especially the tub), so I can replace the faucets when they crap out with something that isn’t El Cheapo house brand, and don’t have to cut off water to the whole house.

I tried to have that done when I had both bathrooms remodeled, I really did. Apparently, that’s just not something that’s done in residential plumbing, unless you are some kind of mutant.

proudly flies the ‘Happy Mutant’ flag

[VeronicaConnor]

@Bonivus_elderheart

I tried to have that done when I had both bathrooms remodeled, I really did. Apparently, that’s just not something that’s done in residential plumbing, unless you are some kind of mutant.

It’s amazing how much building codes vary from place to place (even town to town). Where I live, shut off valves on every fixture are code. I have hot and cold shut offs under every faucet, tub, toilet, etc.

[cannibalpeas]

@Bonivus_elderheart

Apparently, that’s just not something that’s done in residential plumbing, unless you are some kind of mutant.

One of the main reasons I wanted to buy our house was that everything was soldered copper, every pipe was labeled and there were shutoff valves at every important junction, including the main line in and the break where it diverts water to the furnace. I’ve documented here before the misadventures of moving in and finding the p-trap in the bathtub was composed of nothing but calcium crust, but other than that, I’ve been able to correct every issue by tightening a valve stem cap or some other simple leak. It’s also a classic, boring ranch, so all utilities are consolidated into the furnace room, which is located in the center of the basement and will only freeze if things go really sideways.

One of my next projects has to be running an exterior line out to the front of the house as it only has one on the backside of the house which is basically a cliff. I keep fighting myself over my compulsion to just run Pex and make it easy vs doing it the right way. I’ll probably just run a hose around the house this year, though.