I Broke the House

The faucet on the outside of our house (the sillcock for those of you in the know) has been leaking all summer long every time we try to turn it on.  When it’s off, it’s fine.  Turn it on, and our garage starts to flood.  So I thought I would give my handyman skills a workout and see if I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. 

I grabbed my pipe wrench and went to work.  I had the whole thing taken apart with the exception of this one last piece.  I have a twist, and it turned right off.  Unfortunately the reason it twisted right off is because, not knowing my own strength, I actually twisted the pipe and broke it off.  Crap.  The bad news was that there was no direct water cut off for this faucet, so in order to turn the water off, I had to shut off water to the entire house.  So now I had to fix the thing as fast as possible, or go without having running water.  I had no idea where to start, but thankfully my father-in-law was at home “cleaning out the garage” (that’s what he calls it when he’s putzing around but wants to make it sound like he’s working)

Jeff came down and gave me some guidance and helped my replace the piping in the house, after cutting out a chunk of the wall.  Unfortunately the next morning, discovered that it was still leaking a little.  So I went up to our local Taylor’s Do-It Center where you get the absolute best service I have ever seen in any store.  There’s always some old guy who knows how to do everything, and he’s just waiting to answer your question.  I describe to the guy want happened, and what we did to fix it.  He pointed out to me that we skipped a step along the way and that I’d have to do it all again without skipping that step.  When I got home, I tried it and it worked.  Everything is up and working just fine now.

So I broke the house, but fortunately with the help of a couple of wizened men, I was able to fix it again.  Now if only I could fix the giant hole I cut in my wall, I’d be doing just fine.

On a related note, I’m actually writing a new book called “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Home Repair” which is written by me, The Complete Idiot.”For Idiots, by Idiots” is my motto.