When It Rains, It Pours

When it rains, it pours. We are soaked in Caronport. It seems like the roof is holding up fairly well this time around. I do need to get back up there and make sure that I reseal everything that has been done previously again. And since our place has no overhangs, eaves, or gutters, the water just pours down over us like a waterfall. The new windows are doing better now than they had, but the issue is not the windows, but the roofing above the windows. Any leakage that we've had there has come down through the walls where the sunroof covers our deck in the back. Or in places where the little lip of a drip-catch on our trailer is cracked. The kids like the waterfall effect. I personally think the $5000 to replace the roof would be nice, but not worthwhile for us at this juncture. Someone else can do that later if they wish. As of now, we are not being dripped on.

But when it drips, it sprays. I mean the plumbing, of course. After I changed out ALMOST everything in the main bathroom plumbing last weekend, I thought that I should finish the job. And since both toilets were just trickling and took about 5 minutes to refill, I figured I had just cause to get them functional again. We thought over the winter that we had a frozen pipe issue with the one toilet, but when it continued into the spring and the other toilet began doing the same thing, we knew there was more to it than frozen pipes. Of course, the toilet on the far end of the trailer ceased working literally moments before I went to fix it. I had just cause to tinker...

So I fixed the first toilet. There was a whole bunch of build-up in the lines just like the stuff from the hot water tank and lines going into it - except this was in the cold water lines. After the quick fix and removal of gunk, it worked just fine. So I moved onto the main bathroom where so much good had been accomplished last weekend. I drained the lines, but it didn't seem to make a huge difference. By the way, the toilet is only about a year old - Len and I replaced it last year. I hooked it back up and thought I would wait before doing anything drastic. Well, it didn't wait for me. Wasser war überall Spritzen! Pardon my German. I just think the German language has better sound effects when it comes to expressing what actually happened. We sprung a leak and it was spraying everywhere! I rushed to the brand new main shut-off valve in the trailer and quelled the raging geyser. Of course, this happened at 10:30 PM, just before bedtime. We once again had no water.

We awoke the next morning with no water. We had our cereal and milk, got ready for the day using water from the pitcher in the fridge that we warmed up on the stove, gathered everyone into the van, and went into town. Oh - I almost forgot - Faith and I hoisted the old hot water tank into the van and grabbed the computer to take to Sarcan, the recycling place. Sound familiar? When we got into town, we picked up the parts I needed at Home Hardware, got groceries and cash at Superstore and WalMart, took the hot water tank to the dump, took the computer to the recycling place, and ate lunch at Pizza Hut. I know that a few of the details were different, but doesn't that sound an awful lot like my last date with Faith?

We got home and put the kids to bed (except Micah) and I went to work on the toilet lines. The pipe was so old that it had bent and kinked when I re-tightened the hose bib on it. I was able to slide the valve off with my bare hands - the compression fitting was shot and seized solid. Fortunately, I was prepared. I bought an entirely new hose, compression fitting shut off, sandpaper, and a 1/2" copper pipe cutter. I cut off the useless pipe, turned the water on briefly to clear the debris from the line (of which there was A LOT), and polished it up so I could fit the new fitting over the pipe. Well, I don't know a whole lot about plumbing, but I do know about measuring things. The pipe was slightly larger than a 1/2". We ran into this problem once before with our bathroom sinks and instead of fiddling with them we just replaced the whole thing. No such luck this time. I wasn't about to rip out my wall and fish new line through and re-do any of my hard work from last week! I spent a good half-hour sanding down that pipe until I could slide the fitting on to it and attach the valve. And it barely fit. After it was all said and done, it looked very professional. Except for that puddle on the floor. (Where did that come from?)

To ease your mind and my own, there are no more leaks as of today. But I think I should check our lines to the washing machine just to be sure. Last year we called in a repairman to fix our brand-new washing machine, and part of the problem was this same gravel-like collection in our lines that had made their way into the machine. Oh, the joys of living in a trailer in Caronport!