It all started when the clock on our water softener bit the dust. It started making these really nasty noises.
And, well, one thing led to another, and the next thing you know I was now Graydon The Amateur Plumbing Expert!
I absolutely LOVE these cool fittings! Just cut the pipe & snap em in! They're called Shark Bites and man do they make doing emergency plumbing at really bad hours of the night so that you can have water in the morning a lot easier!
...and I didn't have to burn the crap out of the wall either! BONUS!
So, here's what it all looked like when the guy FINALLY got it all fixed.
He had to reinstall the head on this thing 3 times AND fix the leaks AND get it working right AND fix the gallon counter.
The guy didn't get to leave until I was thoroughly satisfied that it was working.
He had to take it apart 3 times before it was working "right".....I bet he never wants to step foot in my house again (and, frankly, if I see another "repair-break-everything-I-own-while-telling-me-I'm-getting-a-better-deal-even-though-the-new-thing-broke-man" again, it'll be WAYYYY too soon!
-Graydon
3 comments:
Those sharks look pretty cool. There are a couple of different compression fittings for putting into pipe like that.
This ordeal just proves a theory of mine that Dad taught me. Often, it's better to do it yourself.. and get it right, than to rely on a "Professional" to come and charge you to mess it up just as bad as you would.
You should have had him switch to pex pipe for the softener. It's very, very easy and fast to work with.
There have been a couple times I have had the family w/ out water for a good portion of the day/night so I can do some repair/additions. One time I sent bread from the basement, all the way up to our bathroom faucet upstairs.
Hey, read the blog I posted about what happened to me in the previous post on this blog.
Graydon, I was wondering if you could come and help me for a few minutes. I have a little leak I need to fix.
You seem to be good at it, maybe you could help me fix the water softener while you at it?
So here's "the rest of the story".
Apparently our pressure relief valve was broken. Static water pressure was hitting clear up to 100 psi (man! Talk about some pressure!)
So, he hooked up the new fangled water softener (because, you know, our old one was just SOOOOOO outdated....and this one was supposed to be SOOOOOO much better!).
He hooked it all up, flipped the by-pass valve, let it fill up, and then I turned on a hot water faucet & something "popped".
Turns out his wussy new water softener wasn't built to handle that much pressure (funny! That 12 year old one that was already there seemed to handle the 100+ PSI water pressure just fine!)
Down in the resin tanks they have these things called "baskets" on them. It's what keeps the resin beads from going into the water (think of it like a strainer).
Turns out my super high pressure water had blown his wussy basket apart. I was so ticked that I made fun of him, "So you're telling me that my old, outdated equipment could handle the higher water pressure better?"..."well, uhm...uh....yeah....I guess"...."And this is supposed to be better, eh?"
What a joke!
Anyway, so he supposedly put a new "basket" in and turned it off & said not to turn it back on until I had the House Pressure Relief Valve replaced.
So.....now I got that replaced, I turn the thing back on and, "Poof!" Resin shows back up in my lines.
Let's just say my phone call to the water softener place the next morning was a duzy that I'm sure the guy will never forget.
So he came back out, I stood over him & made sure he replaced EVERYTHING!!!
And then I made him test everything. The "supposed" new head had 3 leaks on it, and the water meter on it was jammed w/ resin too (sheesh! Some new softener, eh?).
But, he finally did get it fixed, I didn't have to pay a dime for them to haul their sorry butts back out & get it fixed right, but now I still have to re-seal the valves in the shower downstairs (I had to pull them apart because the resin jammed them).
I still think all that was wrong w/ our old one was the clock had gone bad....
-Graydon
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