???

Did I say that I'm in fUnK?

In a funk

I just can't seem to get it together to fix my plumbing.   Same old thing.

I come to the house, I feel overwhelmed, get distracted, then leave.

Something HAS to shift!

Down Under, Pt. 3

Gotta go back down there, I thought to myself.  No choice.  I assumed if I inserted myself in that hole again I would feel a little more comfortable.  So I did. I needed to squirm into the next bay to get access to the problem.  I had stuck a light down into the hole from above so that I could see the point to which to crawl.  When I managed to get into the bay, I just lay there for a bit.  Looked around.





Slowly, I inched forward and shone the light I had dragged in with me to get a sense of what was under there.  Too many pipes. I discovered that many of them were abandoned, which posed a problem for me.  When I finally made my way forward, I was stopped by some pipes that I couldn't go under or over. Some of them were abandoned water pipes, some were waste pipes I could do nothing about.




So, I crawled out backwards - with some effort - stood in the sunlight and talked with Tony about the options.



At least I gave this thing a good shot.  I now have a better understanding of my house.  A good thing.

We went back inside and I started making a bigger hole in the floor.  I was finally able to reach far enough to remove the whole broken pipe complex!  Now I know what I have to do:  widen the hole, order parts to rebuild the whole thing.  That's where it stands.

Down Under, Pt. 2

With my friend Tony helping me out,  we prepared to go down under.  I borrowed a pair of coveralls, and we got lights and some tools in place.

After having widened the access hole and clearing away as much stuff as possible, I tried to go in head first.




It didn't work. I had to do something about a pipe in the way. After backing out, I went in again with a reciprocating saw to cut off the abandoned galvanized pipe. There was also a gas pipe coming out. Couldn't cut that! Being used. Tony did a good job of keeping it out of my.

Next I tried going in feet first. Got fully inside but just couldn't see how to move on to where I needed to go. I was feeling frustrated and a little panicky in the confined space.

Screw it. I'm a failure. I'm out of here.




We decided at that point to go back into the bathroom to see if there was any way to get at the pipes from the small hole in the floor.

 

But it was just too hard to get to the pipes. Feeling deflated, I decided to try one more time to go under.

Down Under, Pt. 1

To review:

• Some water pipes broke (again) in my house during the last freeze
• The break is in a difficult place to fix, just under the floor in the bathroom
• Peering under, there is a jumbled mess I can't understand
• I decide I must go under the house to see if it can be fixed there and to try to make sense of what is what.
• I have never been under my house.
• It scares me. I'm claustrophobic.

D-Day

Tomorrow is D-Day.  I'm going down under!

Water, water everywhere. Not a drop to drink.

I knew the cold weather was coming. Worried about yet another broken pipe fiasco, I decided to turn off the water at the street knowing I wouldn’t be around to check on things while in New Mexico for Christmas. I don’t like turning off the water that way. Keeping the pressure in the pipes is good for the system, I think. Less likely to break something? When I turn it off, then on again with the pressure surging in all at once, I cringe, imagining old joints giving way. It has happened before.

Well, it happened again. I turned the water back on weeks later on a warm day. I saw the meter going round and round and sprinted into the house. Heard water gushing. No, no, no, I hissed at myself. I finally found it. Water squirting up from under the bathroom floor. Disgusted, I ran back out and turned it off. I let it sit that way for a month, as a form of punishment, burdening myself repeatedly with jugs of water for my dog and I to drink while watching past episodes of Lost.

When I got the courage to take a close look. I found this. A crack in a 90 degree elbow joint.

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This is the main cold water pipe that comes into the house. I don’t know anything about plumbing, but this can’t be standard. It comes out of the ground beneath the bathroom and does a zig into the wall. Bad place. Hard to get to. Right next to a gas pipe. I’m screwed.

This can only mean a total plumbing redo. I was hoping to replace many of the pipes after this point with all the new pex piping and stuff I ordered, but now I have to start, literally, from the ground up.

The thought withers me. Despite all the effort I have put into this house the plumbing has gotten worse. At least when I bought it, all the plumbing while butt ugly, was actually working.

Worse still, the next step is to crawl underneath the house to get at this thing and figure out how and where to cut it out. I’ve been putting off crawling underneath my house for six years. Why? I’m claustrophobic. It’s dark, cold, disjointed and cramped down there. The last time I cut a hole in the floor and looked underneath, there lay a single child’s boot in the dirt. That, in itself, is disturbing enough.

Even The Little Things

I thought it would be a good idea to replace my outdoor lamp with this one which features a daylight sensor that will turn the light off in the morning and back on at dusk. I wired it in and tested it and it works! I'm feeling fine. Problem #1: the lamp sits so close up under the eave that the light goes on even in the middle of the day if it isn't a bright cloudless day. I'm going to try to put a piece of aluminum foil or something above the sensor to reflect more light onto it. Problem #2: neighbor from across the street shows up at my doorstep the next day and asks me to turn off the light at night because it shines right in her bedroom window and keeps her up at night! WTF! I laugh and explain incredulously that I just put it in! We talk and laugh about it for awhile. We come up with some options. How about I try to paint the outside of the globe to dim the light a bit? If that doesn't work, I could hang something in front of it. She agrees. I rummage around and find some yellowish paint, take off the globe, paint half - the half facing her, let it dry, then remount the globe. I called her and told her it was up and to let me know if it works for her or not. She says she has plenty more paint in various colors if I need it. It looks kind of funny, but she hasn't complained so far.

Next, I decided I wanted to try out some dimmer switches for my new interior lights. I like dimmers because they save energy and give you better control over the amount of illumination you can get in a given situation. I bought some on eBay. Nice ones. New. Cheap. When they arrived I marched into my house, ripped open one of the packages, tripped off the breaker for the circuit (glad I remembered that step), un-wired the on/off switch I put in a week ago and wired in the new switch.

Dead. No go. Damnit!

Disgusted, I tore it out, put the original 69 cent switch back in, screwed it all in with the plate cover and all, and sat down in my man cave and watched an episode of Lost, 2nd season.

Next day I decided to wrestle with it again. This time I tried wiring it into a different light. Same thing! Dead!! I was pissed. No wonder these things were so cheap. But that can't be. They are brand new and made by Lutron, a quality brand.

Then I saw it. At the very bottom was a tiny on/off toggle set to the off position. Wasn't mentioned in the directions. Hardly visible. Can't understand the function since there is a big button that turns the light off. This little switch makes the whole assembly go dead. Why? Anyway, I moved the toggle to the on position and to my relief, it worked. Wired in the other one. They've been great.

But, I fear this is my lot in life when it comes to this house. Everything seems to be a struggle. Even the little things.

my wound

this house is my wound
shame blocks the sharing of it
no one
can truly see it
i can't even bear
to take it's true measure
of my debasement
so, i deflect with typical banter
of minor struggles
and hope for fraternal sympathy
while it sits there and waits
night after night, dark and cold,
waiting for me to do something
while i cover my ears
avoiding at all costs
the cries
of skeletons in the cupboard

Some Final Thoughts - Electric Upgrade

Got some lights working! Wired some myself! Now I go shopping for sconces, etc. to finish up. I learned some things (you can buy a simple wall switch for 69 cents - made in the USA). Discovered I kinda like working with wire. Almost electrocuted myself when I stuck a probe into a switch - the wrong way. Got my hands dirty. (It's interesting to thrust your bare arm into a newly drilled hole in the ceiling and grope around, not knowing what your fingers will discover.) Radically increased the usability of my hovel (I can now see where the mouse turds are). Forced to make decisions that will effect how I live and are largely irreversible.

Other random thoughts:

• While electricity is probably the #1 innovation in housing over the long haul, little has changed in the last 100 years. It's ridiculous that we still roam from room to room flipping little switches on the wall to channel electrons to turn lumens on/off. I'm going to replace all those switches with a more advanced system that allows for dimming at various stages, in different rooms, with the touch of a button (probably will pay for itself).
  
• The way we organize our housing solutions are pathetic. All those layers of wood, hand carried, hand cut, hand fastened and rotting away out of sight. Many more people could own their own homes if we just made housing in factories and delivered them in pieces.
• Straight walls and floors are a Western conceit
• All those doors everywhere - in hallways, bedrooms, bathrooms, storage spaces, kitchen cabinets - are a reflection of our uptight, sexually repressed, self-loathing, militaristic nature. (More on this in a future post.)