My Suicidal House, Let me tell you about it.
Our house was built in 1900. I adore it, really I do. Yes, it needs some work, some are big things, like a new roof and siding. Most are pretty minor, like tile replacement, new paint, new carpet, drippy faucets. The realator didn’t think this house was livable. We have different ideas of what is livable. I love my house. I loved it from the moment I saw it. I loved it from the moment it was ours.
But it’s trying to kill itself.
And it has help.
Let’s start with the toilet incident. The upstairs toilet was running all the time. A simple check revealed that the rubber part that plugged the channel between the tank and the bowl (I believe it’s called a flapper) was horribly cracked and not creating a seal at all. This should be an easy thing to replace. You turn off the water to the toilet, drain it, disconnect the old flushing mechanism, install the new one (it even comes assembled), turn the water back on, wa-la. About a $12 repair job and about as simple as it gets. One thing to screw in, one thing to hook. Did you see the “should” up there?
We could not get the old part off. Not at all. the all plastic and rubber piece would not move for anything. We even tried busting it out. Nope. Took the tank off, the mechanism was SUPER GLUED to the tank. Immediately a $12 repair job became at least a $50 job because now we have replace the tank. We’ve opted to leave the damn thing off, since we barely use it anyway (that bathroom has no door, so it’s not exactly great to use), and just move the downstairs toilet upstairs when we remodel downstairs.
I made three sets of goals for 2009; Health/Body Goals, Writing Goals and House Goals. I’m tired of the little things not getting done because we forget or get distracted by the big things that need to be done and miss the little ones that we can “easily” do. So every month I want to do at least one thing to better our living environment.
For January I got weatherizing materials to try to make our house more efficient. I was psyched man. Totally worked up and ready to get my house in shape. The foam stripping stuck to everything but the door, even though I didn’t put it any place where we rub or brush and I told the kids hands off. But by the next night it was sticking to the cat, our shoes, our jackets, the walls the floor… And it’s stuck fine in other places, where the kids are more often and where we rub against or have contact will more often. But the specific place that I bought the foam for? Not there.
The plastic thingie I bought to slide under the back door to block air and to divert the rain water (from the gutter the wind storm took down) away for the door instead of under it? Well it turns out the damn door is set crooked so with the plastic thing on the corner by the hinge fits, but the corner by the handle (er, where the handle should be) won’t close.
And the plastic strip I bought for the front door? Well it turns out there’s a metal strip already there, nailed into the door, but between the nails it’s warped and bent and pulled away, sending eddies of wind right up into the house. So I ended up, in a fit of stubborness, super gluing it along the side of the door where I put the foam at first. Why did I super glue it (especially after the toilet incident)? Because the really sticky stuff on it just would not stick for anything to the door.
And the gaps in the metal guard at the bottom? All I can say is I really like rope calk.
The only thing that went right was the foam pieces we bought to put behind the outlets and switches. Of course I’ve only managed to put those in two rooms so far.
This month we decided to replace the bathtub faucet because it was leaking. We were changing washers every month or so. We got a kit and decided to replace the whole thing, the hardware in the wall, the spout, stems, handles everything. We are not complete idiots but this job has seriously made us feel like it.
To begin with we didn’t have all the right parts. So yesterday we took the old parts off (and er, had to use the hammer to do so because there was some corrosion at joints). We didn’t have the right parts so despite spending half the day doing plumbing work (and the other half getting the kit, having lunch and getting birthday presents for the Girl) all we got out of it was not being able to take showers or anything because there are no turn off valves that go to the tub and we had to turn off the whole house water. So we couldn’t turn it back on because there was nothing stopping the water from spraying out of those pipes and we couldn’t even hook up the new hardware we bought.
Feeling nasty today we went and got the adaptors we needed. Awesome, totally ready to kick this house’s butt. You’ll never understand this next part. It makes NO sense at all… We have to remove a pair of old nut and ring sets on the pipes to put new ones on. Only they won’t come off…beause the guy who lived here before us (the one who superglued the toilet part in) saudered the nut and ring on.
We did get the parts on today, and they are the right parts, they they’d look a lot prettier if the rest of the house around it wasn’t a mess (let’s not even get into the laundry area, which we have to crouh in to do all this work, whih suffered a flood at some point and the previous owner just put a couple layers of plywood on top of it instead of replacing it, so now it the floor splinters in places when you step on it). You know, like the big piece of wood in the wall, with nails sticking out of it, that’s sole purpose seems to be getting in the way of reaching the pipes to the tub. Or that we dropped the small wrench I bought just for this job under the house and only that area of the house is enclosed by a brick wall in the crawl space.
Anyway, all the pieces on… didn’t seal right so when we turned on the house water the new hardware started leaking. So yeah, new stuff, but between the hot and cold pipes the leak is worse than it was before we changed the parts, and the hot water is leaking which will make our heating bill skyrocket.
The good news is that this leaking can probably be solved by disconnecting the parts, adding an extra layer of plumbing tape and tightening it back on better so that it seals better. I say probably because in any other house that would fix it. But this is our house, so…
So today we turned the house water on long enough to fill water bottles and pet water dishes, and to bathe, then lived without water for the rest of the day.
Modern plumbing, you may not need it as often as you need power, but you really mourn it when it’s gone.
Please, please, just let it seal better this time beause I’m really tired and want a long hot shower with my shiny new faucet (in a tub that’s probably older than me *sigh*).
