thewayne: (Space Igor)
[personal profile] thewayne
I fixed my kitchen sink today!

When my parents were here last week we replaced the faucet and had an unexplained leak on the cold water line. It was, of course, discovered on my parent's last night. Dad told me to go to Home Depot and return this hose as defective. So I did and got another. Same problem. So I went to Lowe's and bought two hoses, different models. Same problem.

It was the cut-off valve.

I couldn't replace it easily for two reasons. First, I needed a big crescent wrench, which I picked up yesterday. Second, you need the replacement on-hand before you take off the bad one, otherwise you have to leave the water shut off on your house until you get the replacement. A bit inconvenient. Well, conveniently the hardware store in Cloudcroft had the proper-sized valve on the shelf, it was probably more expensive than buying it in Alamogordo, but it would have cost literally $5 in gas (32ish miles round-trip) to go down for the one part. I don't have anything else that I need to buy in Alamo right now, and I don't go down for single items.

So I'm feeling kinda studly and got to buy a big cool wrench!

AND IT ISN'T LEAKING!!! I also installed a faucet-mount water filter, so that was also cool. Unfortunately this also means that I have to do dishes: think about it, it's not easy doing dishes if all you have is hot water.


(you need to wrenches when working on sinks because when removing fittings you'll need one to turn the fitting and one to prevent the fitting that the first fitting is attached to from turning as you don't want to turn it all, you need a big handle (10" or so) because of the poor leverage and reach of the area you're working in, it's going to probably need to be over a 1" jaw, and it helps to have one wrench that has fixed-jaws and one pipe wrench to deal with the fitting you're removing/installing, such as this beauty.)

Re: Huh. Fixed the link.

Date: 2005-09-08 12:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] apostate-96.livejournal.com
I've got some skills and some tools, but nowhere near as much of either as I'd really like. I can do really simple car maintenance (change oil 'n' sparkplugs, gap plugs, change the air filter, etc), but I'd really like to do more. Oh, well. Maybe someday down the line I'll have the time and $$ to learn more of that stuff. Same with home repoair, especially now that we've got a house. I've already been grateful for the stuff I'd learned from my dad. These kinds of events make me wish I lived nearer to him to get to learn more.

January 2026

S M T W T F S
    1 23
45 6 7 89 10
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jan. 11th, 2026 06:23 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios