ugh. plumbing.

So some things don’t always go as planned. But they work out in the end. Like take this past Monday ... I was literally screwing in the final screws of the sheetrock I had hung the day before when apparently my kitchen sink, well, stopped working. As in refused to drain.

Ugh. I hate plumbing.

I assumed it was something with the garbage disposal. So I halted progress on the walls and shifted gears to figuring out what was wrong with it. I spent three nights on it. The first was spent trying to plunge it and then taking it apart to figure out if it was one side of the sink or the other. The second night included a trip - then another - to Home Depot to get a snake - and then a bigger one. Didn’t work. The block wasn’t budging.

Ugh. I hate plumbing. I should’ve been working on my walls.

Finally on the third night I took a whack at the drywall ceiling in my basement - who hangs drywall ceilings in the basement anyway? (umm, it’s sort of convenient being able to access the pipes and wires etc. beneath the floor above) - with my sawzall. And stood staring up at the drain from the kitchen that whoever had installed - well - hadn’t bothered spending the couple of minutes it takes to grade it. So it had literally been resting on the drywall. Yeah - level.

So I quickly surmised that after who-knows-how-many-years stuff had collected in the level spot of the 1-1/2” ABS pipe and finally had enough. So ... I took my sawzall to it, too. Followed by another trip - this time to Mclendons - to get a 10’ length of pipe, a T-fitting and some couplers.

I completely cut out a 9’ length of the old pipe, fitted the new cleanout and couplers and shoved it all up into the ceiling - then glued it all together -

It was then just a matter of cutting off a foot of spare 12-gauge electrical cable and separating the three wires inside to use as hooks for the pipe to hold it up at a downsloping angle (short lengths of cable work great - just loop them around a self-drilling screw and drive it up into the plywood - then loop them around the pipe and twist them off to hold it). Made sure it - well - was sloping down towards the main drain line (1/4” per foot I believe is the standard) - then all was finished a couple hours later.

Gave the glue some time to set and tested ... held breath, turned on kitchen sink and let it run ... no backing up. Phwew. Problem solved.

And I thought back to our trip to MO a couple months ago and about talking to my mom about how they just call ‘A Guy’ to come out and fix stuff and how I - well - do not. Probably because I’m stubborn and I have to figure this stuff out and fix it on my own. But I guess also cos I’m cheap - and Guys are expensive. For about ten bucks I got the 10’ of ABS, couplers and clean out - that would’ve cost at least a couple (if not a few) hundred to pay A Guy.

And there’s something satisfying - at least to me, after the dust and irritation settled - to having figured it out and fixed it myself. And knowing that now it’s done right and I shouldn’t have to worry about my kitchen sink at all.

Now ... back to the walls.