Sunday, January 30, 2011

Plumbing and the Internet

Our 2nd bathroom bathtub has not been working for several months now. It works it just puts out scolding hot water. Not real conducive to giving kids baths. Not to worry, we have other tubs and thats what we have been doing for said several months. I got a wild hair up my ass and decided I would try to fix it today. First, I had to figure out how to take the thing apart so I could figure out what was wrong. I basically needed to replace the valve. I needed to figure out how to take the valve out so I could take it to Home Depot and get a replacement meanwhile, learning how to put it back together once i have the part. Ya follow? Good, because Im not sure I do. Took about 45 minutes to get the thing apart. Would have taken half that time if the valve didn't get stuck half way out. Warning, this is NOT a tutorial.

These are the steps I needed to complete.
1-turn the water off
2-take the fixture apart to gain access to the valve
3-NOT lose any of the parts
4-take valve out (easier said than done)
5-take valve to Home Depot to purchase the right valve
6-return home
7-clean out valve
8-lubricate pipe (everything is better with lube right?)
9-slide valve back into place
10-put all valve pieces back together
11-turn water back on to test prior to fully assembling the fixture
12-test complete
13-reassemble the fixture
14-clean up
15-Give Hannah a hi 5 for a job well done.

Of course Hannah was there to tell me I was doing a great job and to tell me that it was O.K when I was getting frustrated. She's so good at giving encouragement.
Here it is all taken apart

old valve

new valve

lubrication

halfway put back together for testing

my helper, actually she spent most of the time fartin and stinkin up the bathroom. She did hand me some tools though. 

All put back together


Hannah was so pumped that it was all fixed that she wanted to take a bath. The internet gave me just enough knowledge to get the job done. Thank you whoever invented the internet. Wasn't it Al Gore?

3 comments:

eeeeeeeeeevilbanks said...

Not bad man........not bad at all.

pex said...

Good job.

pex said...

Pretty good photos.