We liked the plumber who was recommended to us as much as we liked the electrician who was recommended to us.
When he came out to look at the basement and check out what we needed to do to get the washer/dryer connection installed, he said that it was of course no problem. The way he said this, telegraphed a slight disappointment — at least that's what it seemed like, like he wanted to do more. Like when LeBron dunked on the basketball camper:
You know, like this is holding me back.
Maybe plumbers need to convey a certain confidence: I can dig out whole trenches in twenty minutes, lay eight-inch service lines out to the sewer for an entire street, weld together four floors of main in less time than it takes for you to shop at Trader Joe's — of course this is no problem.
We were also looking to change our hot water system. The oil furnace supplied the water for the radiators and the domestic supply. Home fuel oil is close to $4 a gallon. Plus, it felt like the boiler ran out of water when we'd take showers. We needed to do something.
We checked on an indirect-fired hot water system, but it still meant that we'd be paying money to heat up the water in the summer, so that seemed less efficient. The plumber encouraged us to think about a gas hot water heater, which was a lot cheaper than an indirect-fired system.
"If this were my house," he said — he likes to use this construct — "I'd have all gas." It was too expensive to get a new boiler but we did decide to get a gas hot water heater installed.
So the plumber took a look at the rest of the house and noted that we had copper pipes connected to the main — not lead), which was good. He pointed at the long ball valve handle and showed me where the water main shut off was. He also pointed at two regular gate valve handles and said never to touch those.
"See those?"
"Yup, yup," I said.
"Never touch those."
"Nope, nope," I nodded, "OK."
I understood what he was saying, but of course I wanted to know what those handles did.
Everything got done, the washer and dryer were installed (and worked) and getting a gas water heater was the best choice we could have made; the gas has only been running about $20 a month more, and this way we don't depend on a man to come and deliver oil for our hot water.
But I didn't learn my lesson with not touching stuff.
So in the bathroom there are two shut-off valves on the wall past the toilet, which I assume control the sink and shower, even though the sink has its own shut-off valves. I was curious about what they controlled, so I twisted them off, at which point the one on the left started leaking, then wouldn't stop leaking.
"Fuck me," I said, to no one in particular.
I ran down to the basement to the water main shut off and cut the water to the house. Then I chipped away at the tile and tried to see if I could change the leaky shut-off valve. It was stuck.
"Fuck me."
I went to the hardware store to figure out what to do. I told the man behind the counter what I did.
"It wasn't broken?" he said, shaking his head. "So why did you touch it?"
I know, I know: Don't touch it!
He sold me some Liquid Wrench.
I got home and sprayed the Liquid Wrench and started twisting. Nothing was moving. I had visions of summoning the plumber, who would say something along the lines of, "Of course we can fix this, but why did you touch it!?"
Out of frustration I started twisting the handle with the wrench. It moved, buckled and finally broke off:
And the most miraculous thing happened: I turned the water back on and, lo and behold, the handle stopped leaking. I looked around.
"Fuck me."
I poked at it; nothing seemed wrong. So I got out some grout and sealed it up.
Every good relationship requires compromise, and when Jen decided that the chandelier light fixtures in the dining room and the living room needed to be painted, and I didn't really feel like painting them, I eventually ended up painting them.
Now you may be wondering, as we wondered, why there was a chandelier light fixture in the living room. I don't know the answer to that. But it was there and needed to be painted.
Like I said, I wasn't terribly interested in taking down light fixtures and painting them. I wasn't too secure with my ability to take them down, paint them and return them to where they belong and work again.
Now the thing I love about electricity — and plumbing, for that matter — is that it's usually pretty simple. You connect something, hopefully correctly, and it turns on. It's like logic on a practical scale. So when the chandelier fixture in the dining room stopped working, it was really disconcerting.
I have to admit that I have no idea what I did to make it stop working, or if I even did anything and it stopped working. Frankly, it would have been better if I unscrewed it from the ceiling, pulled the wires down from the crawl space and cut them in two because at least then I'd know why it stopped working.
I tried everything — changed the light switch, stripped the wires and reattached them, switched the wires around, switched the wires around on the light switch, switched the fixture from the living room into the dining room. Nothing was happening.
Then the madness began. I like Googling my way out of problems, but electricity questions are something that you don't want to Google — the discussion of currents and positivity and negativity is almost too mystical. Basically the only advice I could discern was to call an electrician.
I kept retracing my steps, trying to figure out what I undid. For example, I knew the light fixture in the dining room was connected to the main circuit that travels throughout the house. In our case, we have seven circuits — two for the air conditioner outlets in the two bedrooms, one for the kitchen, one for the boiler, I guess a few others and then this one for basically everything else — the basement, the other stuff in the bedrooms, the staircase light, the hallway lights and then of course the dining room, which is what the chandelier was connected to.
So then I noticed the lights in the basement were weak — where they weren't before. At first I assumed the fluorescent bulbs were going out — and I had no idea how old they were since we just bought the house — but then I got to Googling and learned that dim lights can be the sign of something, too. Something bad about weak current. Something I didn't want to be true.
On a hunch I decided to switch my computer arrangement to the air conditioning outlet in the one bedroom. I was getting ready to switch off that main circuit to work on the lights when, lo and behold, the chandelier started working again.
Like I said, I want to assume it was something I did, so I went back and listed everything I did. Jen had a friend at work who was a contractor, and we were going to run it by him.
One of the first things we did was change the light fixtures in the bedroom and bathroom, which are both on the same circuit as the chandelier — I didn't think this caused the chandelier to stop working, but I forget the time frame.
Another thing I did made more sense because it just looked old and fucked up and looked like it could screw up something. Basically, when I painted in the stairwell, at the top of the stairwell there was this ancient light switch plate behind the door that we never open. I took off the light switch to paint and when I did, the switch was stuck in a half-on-half-off position from years of paint and I played around with it. I assumed it was a non-working switch. It looked like it was a gazillion years old, and every other light switch in the house had been updated except for this one.
But maybe they just forgot about it since it was behind the door in the stairwell and they missed it. Maybe they assumed it didn't work either. (Or perhaps they knew not to touch it; "Don't Touch It!" is the main lesson of everything I've learned about fixing stuff in the house.)
Maybe when I put the light switch plate back on, it jarred the switch. Maybe that shorted out the other switch. Maybe the chandelier fixture stopped working around this point. I wasn't really sure of anything, but I couldn't think of what else it would be. And when you look at what's behind the switch plate, you think this has to be what went wrong.
Eventually I tried turning this old switch off and on and what I assumed was a vestigial switch actually controlled the light in the dining room down at the bottom of the stairs.
So that was that — mystery solved. Except that I'm pretty sure I tried all this stuff before. Jen's contractor friend's advice: "Call an electrician." Which is what basically everyone on Google says, too.
So fast forward a few weeks — we were getting a circuit installed in the basement for a washer/dryer hookup and once everything was going along OK I inquired about it. It was one of those questions that you're not sure you want the answer to, so I prefaced it by making it clear that everything was basically working fine now.
