Earlier this week, the problem was with my waterbed. Even after draining the mattress, the fibrous "lumbar support" retains enough water such that maneuvering the mattress around (to get the heater out) was no easy task. I was sore by the time I got that repair done.
And then yesterday my sink stopped draining. Rather abruptly. What could it be? I'm the only one here, and it's not like lots of hair is going down my drain (see here for evidence). I removed the trap--nothing in there. I looked down the drain--nothing in there. Dang, the stoppage is in the pipe in the wall. That required a few hours' work today as well as two trips to Home Depot. A snake got the stoppage--goop of some kind--cleaned out, and I replaced all the plumbing from the sink to the wall. Sore from crawling under the sink so much.
Then I started work on the toilet. Sometimes you have to jiggle the handle before the flapper settles; should be an easy fix, right? Wrong. I have some unique system in there, one that doesn't even use a "universal" flapper valve. I figured out quickly why the thing sticks and needs to be jiggled, but fixing that dislodged what appears to be a jerry-rigged fix to keep the toilet from running. Ugh! To fix this, it looks like I'd have to--wait for it--remove the tank. I'm gonna try to restore the jerry-rigged fix. If that doesn't work, I might have to remove the tank to replace all the guts inside.
I'm tired of all these repairs! I guess that's part of the cost of living in a house that's older than I am.
AS the saying goes, when it rains, it pours! ;-)
ReplyDeleteIt's systemic cascade failure, like all the coolant hoses in a car's engine:
all of them age at the same rate, but then one starts leaking, and you replace it, which then stresses out another weak hose, and it blows out, and you replace that one, which in turn... and so on.
But think of the money you saved by not having to call a plumber!