Violating One of My Home Owner Rules

One of my top rules for home owning is never do anything with electricity or water.

Because for me personally, I have no idea what I’m doing with the electrical or plumbing in my house. I’m not all that much of a DYI type of guy. I’ll paint. Beyond that I’m not that much of a fixer of things unless it is really really easy. There are probably more things I could do but better to play it safe.

I violated that rule the a couple of weeks ago. My bath tub drain was running slowly. I’d gone out and gotten drain cleaner. Used that a couple of times. It helped a little but not all that much.

I then looked down the drain. I noticed that there was something stuck in it. It was a piece of soap. I thought maybe I could poke it out with a coat hanger. The soap was too hard. I couldn’t make a dent in it. Then I tired using boiling water on it. That didn’t seem to do much with it either.

I decided that I would try a screw driver. I thought I would just push down on the soap and see if I could break it up. The first pushed didn’t do anything. I tried again and all of a sudden the soap broke. I turned on the faucet and the water ran just fine. I then went down stairs and saw the water coming out of the dinning room ceiling. I did certainly clear the drain up.

This was the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. I put a call in that night to Michael and Son. I didn’t need emergency service I just wanted to be first on the list to be called the next day. I did get a call early the next morning. The would not be able to get anyone out to my house until the following Wednesday. They did say if it was an emergency they could get someone out earlier. I said it wasn’t.

I set up all sorts of fans to dry out the dinning room ceiling. I didn’t want any mold to grow. I dried it out. But the next day I noticed that it seemed to be wet again. It turns out that the tub faucet leaks. I put a towel down and then a Tupperware container to catch the water. I was surprised how much water filled the container.

The appointment was for Wednesday afternoon. I had a 2-6 window. He arrived around 3. I told him what happened. I also told him I’d cleared out the front bedroom closet in case he needed to use that to get the plumbing in the bathroom. I do not have an access panel. He said he would go through the dinning room ceiling. I also asked him to fix the leak in the tub faucet.

It took about two hours for him to do everything. In the end he had to run a snake through the bath tub drain because it was still running slow. I thought this would cost thousands upon thousands of dollars. It turned out not to be all that bad. The thing is I would have had to have someone come in and snake the tub drain even if I’d some how gotten the piece of soap out. And I’m glad I discovered the dripping faucet and had it fixed.

I still have to get the dinning room ceiling repaired. Michael and Son is going to do that too. It will probably cost a little more with them. But not having to find someone else to come makes up for that. I’m even going to ask how much it would cost for them to install ceiling fans downstairs.

So from now when it comes to electricity and water it’s complete and total hands off.