I was a teenage DIY apocalypse

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

(Latest in an ongoing series of homecare disasters)

This one looked so simple. The cold tap on my bath had stopped working. In itself this is no great surprise- the water round here is harder than a shark with a flick-knife and things tend to get scaled up. "No problem" I thought. "A spot of gentle persuasion will shift the scale and get things going again".

So I fish a torque wrench out of my toolbox, fit it on the tap-head. Gently, but firmly, I started rotating the tap control back and forth to grind down the scale jamming the threads.

Metal fatigue's an unpredictable bugger, isn't it? There's a loud "Crack!". Now I no longer have a tap. I have a fountain. Cue sprint to the stopcock and the first of many uses of the expression "****".


Stage 2.

Go to B&Q. This is always a mistake. I see the tap I want, but the curresponding order number reads "Basin tap", not "Bath tap". Amateurs. I take it to the till, and spend far too long attempting to explain this basic error to the acne-scarred, knuckle-dragging, slack-jawed ****wit schoolboy who was clearly trained in customer service by a sociopath. Become spectacularly acerbic with him, but it's just water off a duck's back. Receive taps.


Stage 3.

Drive home. Through a blizzard. That was fun.


Stage 4.

Make the entertaining discovery that while the taps are indeed bath-taps as I had requested, they are of a totally different design- they're lever taps. Consider making tentative enquiries into how I can go about getting B&Q staff killed, but decide that as these taps usually cost more I've actually done quite well. Then the fun really starts.
My bathroom is tiny, and the bath was clearly plumbed in before the toilet. I can get the busted cold tap changed, but there's no way I can get my wrench on the hot tap fastening unless I swap my right arm for a tentacle and grow some sort of prehensile third limb to close the wrench while it's held in place. The alternative is to take my bathroom apart to give myself more room to wedge myself in closer to the action. All to replace one tap.


Stage 5.

Say "****" again.


Stage 6.

Repeat stage 5 repeatedly.


Stage 7.

Give up. Bath now has mis-matched taps. Bath looks stupid. Don't care. Sulk in front of TV and try to think of some way to blame the wife.

[Bereta_Eder]

As they say, at least you tried

[Alexander's Horse]

You need a bigger house.

[Alexander's Horse]

Some advice:

If you go to a hardware store - take the fitting you want to replace with you

Plumbing jobs - as you now know really require a qualified tradesman - unless its something simple like a replacing a washer.

For one thing plumbers have special tools for moving fittings in tight corners

[Bereta_Eder]

The only thing I dare try myself is changing the elastics inside the taps, when the latter start to leak and I always cross myself before doing it.

[Provost Harrison]

Oh the delights of plumbing...apparently it is a very lucrative area, perhaps I should look for a career there

[Gods Pet Monkey]

Congratulations, that’s a pretty good DIY job...

But I must be said you haven’t seen DIY until you have seen Aussie DIY. We take it to a new level.

In your position, I can see 2 things a true Aussie bloke would do...

1) I notice you went to a shop, and bought a new tap. No Aussie would do this, simply because it would require a clue about what you’re doing, and if you had a clue, you would have hired a plumber.
No, a true Aussie bloke would run outside, proceed to rip the head of a garden tap, then attach it to the bath tub with black electric tape (no real Aussie would use that fancy water proof plumbing tape stuff). He would probably consider it better then a professional job (and offer to do it for his mates free of charge) despite the fact that the tap is now turned towards the wall.

2) This Aussie bloke is particularly lazy, so instead of swapping crap, he just runs a hose from the garden tap to the bath tub and makes the wife run out and turn it on when he needs to use it.

[Lancer]

I was cutting a hole above my sink for a new medicine cabinet when my sawsall blade cut into the cold water pipe. Water was spraying through the whole and raining inside the wall. I ran over to my friends place, he knows plumbing pretty well, and he actually had a gray plastic patch widget. I cut the pipe the rest of the way through and we slipped this wonderful thing on one end then down over the other end and good as new!

I bought a mirror the size of the hole and slapped it on, project finished...without the medicine cabinet.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Some advice:

If you go to a hardware store - take the fitting you want to replace with you

Plumbing jobs - as you now know really require a qualified tradesman - unless its something simple like a replacing a washer.

For one thing plumbers have special tools for moving fittings in tight corners

Great first piece of advice, though it relies on the braindead pisscrane on customer services putting the right tap in the box. That's the flaw.

[Evil Knevil]

Just finished building a chest of drawers, great stuff.

Pity all the holes weren't exactly circular and I had to spend the afternoon with hammer and chisel...

My Dad electrocuted himself by puting a nail in a power cable trying to put up a picture frame. He's alright now, but ****ing funny at the time.

[Adam Smith]

Unasked for piece of advice #2:

Turn off the stopcock before doing anything, no matter how simple. This has saved my ass from unexpected trouble more than once.

[Provost Harrison]

That is a very sensible piece of advice Adam, one I have used when doing any plumbing work in the house (well, I must admit the most extravagant I have done is change a washer, but it turned out the middle section of the tap was buggered, but it was easy enough to get another one of those).

[Graag]

I once spent 2 hours hammering screws into a DIY flatpack desk before I realised I was using the big screws for a different bit, and the small screws actually fit pretty damn well.

[Provost Harrison]

Hmmm, flatpack stuff. Whatever you do, don't mention IKEA to Laz

[Graag]

It was Argos actually. But IKEA has served me well in the past...