Sweatin' with the OLE

So we have been sweating lately. Not only perspiration, but pipe um...eration. It has been hot. Pretty darn hot. But not too bad at night. We put this fan up in the window and it helps to suck in some cool night air into the bedroom. You can really tell the difference when you walk from the closed bedroom to the hallway what a difference the fan makes. I am still working on getting someone to come and take care of the electrical box upgrade. I have been working a fair amount of overtime lately so it makes it hard to catch back up with people that I call.

Since it was hot last week I decided to work in the basement where it is sometimes cooler. Specifically I have been working on the spigot that goes to the back. The problem was that one of the shut-off valves was leaking. So you had to turn the water off at the next valve and not use the spigot. So I decided to fix that. I figured out what I needed pipe and elbow wise. The pipe coming from the shut off valve that wasn't leaking was copper. Then for some reason it enlarged to a slightly larger galvanised steel pipe. This pipe had a T in it so one side went to the wall and then to a snubbed off piece of pipe. The other side went outside and under the deck to the far side. So like I said previously, I figured up what I needed, I decided to keep a snubbed off part just in case I want to put a slop sink in the basement in the future, and I went to Lowes. So, I actually haven't been to Lowes in a while, but as you will see I will quickly become reacquainted with it.

Lowes trip #1- (In my head I say) OK I am going to be smart and get everything that I need so I don't have to come back again. (I guess I am an optimist.) So I get what I need and some extra stuff like an extra can of propane and a couple extra elbows in case I mess up etc. I am thinking ahead here. I pay for and bag up all of my stuff and head home. I get home and go to start to take apart the old piping in the basement. I cut off the copper at a point. Now time for the steel. "Where did my hacksaw go?" Well I can't take the piping apart because it is rusted. I can't cut it because I can't find this hacksaw that I had like 5 years ago and I had thought I saved it for a rainy day. I can't use the sawzall b/c it has a dull wood blade on it. I can't cut the steel pipe with the pipe cutter (end up breaking that). I can't heat the pipe up hoping that it miraculously falls apart. Therefore.....

Lowes trip #2- I go and get a pipe wrench, a bi-metal blade for the sawzaw, and once again "trying to think ahead," get a demolition blade for the sawzaw. So I get back to the house, cut the pipe with the bimetal sawzaw blade like a hot knife through butta, and get to work on assembling my pieces. I cut the pipes to the sizes that I need and start to solder them together. I have never sweated pipes before, but I had helped a plumber for a week when I was working for the cabinetry shop a couple years ago. So I had as much experience as if I stayed in a Holiday INN last night.

Pipe Problem #1- If you are working with 1/2" pipe and a small 90 degree elbow do you:
A- try to heat up the whole thing and stick a piece of pipe in both ends and solder it
B-heat up one end and then heat up the other and solder separately
C-use a wet rag as a type of heat sink

If you picked
A- you got a lot of solder that wouldn't hold a breeze more/less water.
B- the other side melts when you try to heat up the end that you are working on.
C- DING DING DING you are smarter than I am

OK that took a while to figure out, though, why the stuff wasn't holding together or how to keep it from doing A or B. So, once I figured it out I was on my way.
At this point I somehow transitioned into DAY 2 of the operation. It all blurs together after a while.

So I get everything together and go to turn on the water. Well you may have had a vision of the Titanic when you read that first line, but it really wasn't that bad. I did have one elbow leaking though. More solder does not equal not leaking though I found out. So I cut out the elbow.

Lowes trip #3- I go back and pick up something like 4 more elbows and approx 4 couplings. I AM NOT GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE ANOTHER TRIP BACK HERE AGAIN. With that said, I didn't. I got back and started putting the pipes back together.

Somewhere around day 3 of the pipe campaign.

I get everything together. I have only burnt myself twice with hot solder. I only got a little poison ivy on my hand from crawling under the deck to put on some pipe hangers. I only have 2 fingers that don't have sticky stuff on them from the spray foam that collects everything when you get it on your hands. AND I have water coming out the back and no longer dripping in the basement. All I have left is to make a bracket for the spigot to connect it to the deck frame.

And that is the rest of that story.