Oh joy

Well, today was a laugh a minute. I woke up early for work, made my eggs and grits with bacon, brewed my coffee, and sat down to watch the weather, and wait for the phone call with directions to the job. My phone call came, and I was informed that the job got bumped a day. Matt called yesterday asking me a plumbing question. I explained to him over the phone how to fix it. He said he'd call someone, and have it done. He called back, and said it was going to cost a mint. I told him I'd try to help him after work today. Well now I have the whole day to go to Wixom to take care of his plumbing. I made a post on my favorite website, got showered and dressed, and headed down the road with a Fein tool, work light, and torpedo in the car. When I arrived, he showed me his plumbing. One of the 1/2" water lines had broken pretty badly under the end of his trailer. I guessed we would need about 6 feet of line, two couplings, and some glue to fix it. I told him we were going to get about 12-15 feet of line, 1/2 dozen or so straight couplings, 1/2 dozen or so tees, and 1/2 dozen or so elbows. I've been there with plumbing. We went to the Mobile home depot to get the supplies, where a salesman tried to talk Matt into buying several very expensive couplings, and some expensive line. In addition, he would have to get insulation to replace what was saturated and ruined, plus some plastic to provide the air and vapor barrier. They did not have the fittings I wanted, or the line, or the insulation. They did have the plastic, and some skirting. I said we had to go. From there, we drove to Home Depot, and located everything on the list. The bill came to around 80 bucks. The plumber Matt called quoted him that much per hour. We went back to the trailer, where I set the torpedo up to blow into the crawl space, and I fixed the broken line. After letting it sit for a bit, Matt went in and turned the main valve on so I could check for leaks. As soon as he did, I got a facefull of water from another broken pipe just outside my field of vision while I was watching the repair I had just made. I yelled at him to turn the water back off. He did, and I proceeded to cut the old line out, and replace it with new. Once that was done, Matt turned on the water, and I found another split pipe. This time I ended up replacing a tee, and several feet of pipe, but I used the last of the straight fittings. Once again, he turned the water on,and once again, I found another split. We left for Home Depot for more straight fittings. We returned, I fixed that one, Matt opened the valve, but this time it looked promising. After a few seconds of nothing, I watched water start to spray out of a split in a different line. This one was only 3/4 of an inch long, and I could see no other leaks. I cut out the offending line, and another tee, replaced it with new stuff, and tested the pipe again. This time, there was nothing. Finally, after about 6 hours, all the broken pipes were replaced, and we could begin the messy task of replacing soaking wet, urine scented fiberglass insulation. I cut most of it out to access the plumbing, so the task was fairly easy at this point. Once all the bad pink stuff was out, I started taping together the existing plastic, and replacing insulation one batt at a time. "Sew" up a couple feet of plastic with duct tape, and replace one batt, sew up a couple more feet, and install another batt, etc, etc. I used most of a 77 square foot package of fiberglass batting. After the final piece was in, Matt and I both began to install the new plastic sheeting to keep wind from blowing through the slit in the old plastic. To do this, we had to crawl through puddles, soaking wet fiberglass insulation, and what must be the worlds largest kitty litter box. By the time I crawled out from under that trailer, I was soaked to the skin in water that smelled like cat urine, I had dirt in my hood that smelled like crap, my face and eyes and lungs were so full of fiberglass that I could have sanded a table top with my cheeks, and I had been sucking kerosene fumes from my heater for around 8 or 9 hours. Matt was no better. I packed up my stuff, and hit the road. I wanted a shower. Matt had to wait for his water heater to heat up before he could shower. He shut it down to avoid burning out heating elements when his plumbing broke yesterday. I probably made the hour drive home and got a shower before he did. Now my eyelids are creeping southward, and my eyes are scratchy, from exhaustion as well as fiberglass.
Until next time...