Tag: Plumbing Problems

Carnation In Black & White

Well, we have a nice new working shutoff for our waterline and no filter.

The no filter bothers me as I haven’t used water without a filter (a really heavy duty one no less) for over 22 years when I got a notice from the town I lived in that we had extremely high levels of a pesticide in our water and that we’d had those high levels for over a year. That was when I learned that there are ranges of what is acceptable in your water and times when they have to notify you when those levels are too high and that those points aren’t always soon enough for you to do something about it. Those regulations don’t always make since. I found out about those levels when OC was still a baby and realized I’d been drinking that water while I’d been pregnant and mixing their formula with that water for over a year.

So a filter is a absolute must in my house as I just don’t trust what comes in through my pipes.

The problem is that when we got our whole house filter, they pulled all the things from the water that I was looking for, specifically things like the pesticides. Now, almost all of those don’t work the same anymore. The only ones that really do are the under sink kinds, though I have no idea why there is such a difference. Considering the cost differences between the two, you’d think the whole house filters would do the better job, but that isn’t the case.

I had to do some research on what to get as a replacement as almost all of the under sink filters require their on faucet and my counter in the kitchen can’t handle another faucet. I did finally find one that just connects into the waterlines and goes directly to your existing faucet, but I had to get one for both the hot and the cold.

While those are going to do the job, I’m going to really miss not having to think about where I get the water in the house to drink. Cooking is kind of obvious as I would only ever use the kitchen faucet, but we have a waterline in the fridge too that isn’t being filtered. Our fridge has the filter option, but we don’t have a filter for it as it wasn’t needed. The filters for those aren’t as good as what I’d like, so I haven’t decided what I’m going to do about that one. As of right now, I’ve irritated the hell out of Hubby as I’ve locked out the water option forcing him to use the filter pitcher I got for MC to take to the dorm with him, but have temporarily stolen back.

My new filters won’t be here for another day or two and it is so weird having to stop and think about what I’m doing every time I go to use the water. I’m going to really miss the whole house filter, but it will also be nice to not have to worry about a repeat with another unit in the basement.

Well. Okay Then.

I cannot decide if someone really hates me and is sending some seriously evil curse vibes or I’ve got a massive number of lucky stars shining down on me. Maybe it is a bit of both. It kind of feels like I’m the cartoon character that just barely avoids getting hit by a bus because they tripped and fell into a mud puddle.

I had managed to get all the doors and door trim painted yesterday. It seemed to all go amazingly well. The doors covered beautifully and didn’t require too many layers. The trim was almost as good, but still came out looking nice.

Of course, to paint the doors I had to take them off their hinges so I could get to the edges. The problem came when I went to hang them back up. Both of the two new doors would get one or two of the hinges to line up, but the third simply would not no matter what I did or how I positioned them. I didn’t really pay attention when I took them off as to which ones went in which spots, but they should have all been identical. I did keep each door’s hinges separate, but not the individual ones for each door. These apparently needed to go back exactly how they came off.

After a really annoying game of musical hinges, I finally got both doors hung and the door nobs temporarily in place to make sure everything lined up and worked before I did anything else, but one of the doors is now catching the door frame at the top. It works, but not the way it really should. I’ll still need to fix that and paint the inside of the doors, which I can do with them hanging, but it was a huge relief to get that part done. Technically, I should be able to get inspected now.

The wild, cursed/lucky part of the day came about 30 minutes after I got done hanging the last door. If you look at the photo closely, you will see the 3rd door set up in the cat room. That’s were I painted that one as I didn’t have the space to lay it out in the new room and I wanted to get all 3 done at the same time.

I had been standing in that spot, painting that door and then getting it hung back up so close to where disaster hit that it isn’t even funny. Because right above where that door was chilling out waiting for the paint to dry is our whole house water filter. Or, that is where it was at the time I was painting. It’s no longer there because it broke off. The base shot off and slammed into the concrete floor and shattered. Because it is connected to the water line, you can guess what that also meant.

Water everywhere.

It was a huge mess and nearly everything in that room got wet.

It was completely awful, but I cannot help but look at all the things that could have gone wrong with it but didn’t. It could have happened later when we were all in bed asleep and not even known it broke and water would have flooded the basement, including doing major damage to my new space.

As it was, Hubby was working in his office on a major software upgrade for work and heard it. He doesn’t work often on weekends and definitely not that late, so it is such a freak thing that he heard it when it broke and was able to get downstairs and turn the water off right away. Because he was able to get to it immediately, we were able to avoid any water getting to the new walls. We were within inches, but we were able to stop it from getting too far.

The cat boxes are normally just under where this fell, but were upstairs because I was painting and didn’t want the cats in the way. So many things could have happened if they’d been there. The mess alone would have been horrendous with the kitty litter and water combo. Then you have the chance that one of the cats had been in there at the time. I just don’t even want to think about it.

I’m now ridiculously grateful for all the headaches and delays I’ve had on this project because if I’d been even close to where I thought I’d be by now, the floor would have been down. While we did keep the water away from the walls, it still got into that space where flooring would have been and I’m not certain the water wouldn’t have done major damage to it. Even worse would have been having to pull up flooring AND take out cabinets to do it.

Then you add in the fact that I was standing right underneath that sucker just a short time before it broke is kind of terrifying. It came off with all the force of the water pressure in the line and it is hard plastic. I don’t even want to think what kind of damage it could have done.

So very many things could have happened with this. Yes, it was a horrible mess and a couple of cardboard boxes are probably ruined. Yes, we are going to have an ugly plumbing bill because we have to get someone out today to fix it all. Our main shut off is dripping (because of course it is!) and we can’t get our water back on full yet because of that and what is left of the broken filter needs to be removed entirely (which will require some pipe replacement). But… it could have been massively worse with so much damage. I’m going to be thanking those lucky stars profusely for a very long time.