a little plumbing
Yesterday I tackled a small plumbing project for my parents.
The faucet set you see to the left is about 12 years old and came with the house. My parents wanted to replace it with something a little prettier and they enlisted me to do the work.
I don't have much plumbing experience and had only installed one faucet set before--and that was around 10 years ago--but for some odd reason I had a sense of confidence about this project. LOL
As it turns out, that confidence was ill placed. I spent near 6 hours--albeit some long breaks were contained within that time span--trying to remove the original faucet set. Between corroded metal, frozen screws, improper tools, and an unusual original installation I really got frustrated!
This is what I removed from the sink. At least most of it. I had to tear apart some metal flanging from each knob with visegrips to get at a hidden screw--I couldn't figure out the proper way to get at it--and those metal shards aren't on the towel.
In any case, as you can tell from the towel, all the old faucet set eventually succombed to my efforts. I must admit it was more persistance and determination that accomplished this task. Artistry and skill were markedly absent!
Fortunately the next step was quite a bit easier. In fact installing the new faucet was so straightforward and uncomplicated that afterwards I just couldn't believe I'd done it right. It took less than an hour--and had I been fresh and not sore all over it'd have taken no more than 30 minutes.
This is what the new knobs and faucet look like. Maybe not works of art but a definite improvement over the original equipment.
By the way, my parents have dial-up and that's why the pictures are so small. Uploading pictures is just too painful with such a slow connection.
The faucet set you see to the left is about 12 years old and came with the house. My parents wanted to replace it with something a little prettier and they enlisted me to do the work.
I don't have much plumbing experience and had only installed one faucet set before--and that was around 10 years ago--but for some odd reason I had a sense of confidence about this project. LOL
As it turns out, that confidence was ill placed. I spent near 6 hours--albeit some long breaks were contained within that time span--trying to remove the original faucet set. Between corroded metal, frozen screws, improper tools, and an unusual original installation I really got frustrated!
This is what I removed from the sink. At least most of it. I had to tear apart some metal flanging from each knob with visegrips to get at a hidden screw--I couldn't figure out the proper way to get at it--and those metal shards aren't on the towel.
In any case, as you can tell from the towel, all the old faucet set eventually succombed to my efforts. I must admit it was more persistance and determination that accomplished this task. Artistry and skill were markedly absent!
Fortunately the next step was quite a bit easier. In fact installing the new faucet was so straightforward and uncomplicated that afterwards I just couldn't believe I'd done it right. It took less than an hour--and had I been fresh and not sore all over it'd have taken no more than 30 minutes.
This is what the new knobs and faucet look like. Maybe not works of art but a definite improvement over the original equipment.
By the way, my parents have dial-up and that's why the pictures are so small. Uploading pictures is just too painful with such a slow connection.
Comments
You didn't have plumber's crack, did you?!?
Your perserverence paid off :)
The winds have finally died down today. It is still cool, only in the 50's but is to be in the 70's by Sunday.