Plumb Crazy Week

The first week of Mom being a wonderful grandma in Utah ended up being a BIG week for dad at home.  (With no allusion to a BIG week of fun.)  The 20+ year old original water heater gave 336 a double life span so it was no surprise when it "went out" 2 weeks ago.  It kept dripping along to allow mom to get clothes and self ready to fly out of town last Tuesday. Tuesday night dad removed the old unit.   How many days is dad going to have to live without running water, or at least hot water, while mom is gone?

The downstairs bathroom has never had hot water even tho' the water heater is back to back with the bathroom.  Dad has ALWAYS planned on having that fixed.  With the water heater out, it was an efficient time to open up the wall and ... what did dad see?  Just as suspected, the hot water supply to the powder room sink is tapped off the cold water "IN" line. . .while the cold water supply to the powder room sink is tapped of the cold water "OUT" line.   (Note:  The "HOT" and "COLD" marking were added after the wall was opened up to make sure hot ended up with hot this time.)

Thurs. evening after work was the time to do the tricky fix.  Cut-n-cap the cold water line.  (Now dad has NO water... hot or cold in the house.)  The below photo shows that a "tee" is cut into the hot water main line, which is then connected to the powder room hot water supply line that was running fractions of an inch right behind it. (Don't laugh at dad's sloppy pipe sweating job.  It is the first copper pipe soldering he has done in his life)

With the piping in the wall redone done, the hole in the wall was re-drywalled.  Now it was time to get the 140 # water heater in the closet.  Mom had gone with dad the week before to purchase the unit, so dad had a helper to unload it.  Now, a week latter, dad was on his own.  How does the song go?. . . make like an Egyptian and build a temporary ramp to get the unit up the 14" to the floor line of the water heater closet.  (Photo below)

When the previously purchased w/h was unboxed. . . what did dad see?  A unit that was smashed in at the top and majorly dented on both sides.  So, Friday morning it was back to HD for the exchange. Oh, boy was dad missing his hardy helper wife now! The Monrovia HD was out of this (apparently very popular) model.  So, it was a refund and then off to the Glendora HD who had just the model that was wanted.  The below photo shows the new w/h all done and fired up with new supply lines (another pipe unsoldering and then soldering job) and seismically strapped into place.

Since dad was in the plumbing/pipe sweating mode, it was on to the main shut-off valve at the front of the house.  The valve has not shut the water off for about 10 years. With all the plumbing fidgeting 336 takes it would sure be nice to have a working main line shut-off. It was time for a Saturday night HOT shower.

 The old gate valve (junk) was replaced with a ball valve.  The hose bib above this valve has not worked for years due to an stoppable leak.  It was time to replace that as well. . . un-sweat the old, re-sweat the new . . . no sweat.

Now dad can shut the water off really easy to get to all of his other long delayed plumbing repair to-do list items.  (Apologies for the poor photo quality due to the poor quality cell phone camera.)