Didn’t I tell you that I am not a plumber?

I kept saying:

“I am not a plumber.”

“It is against the law for me plumb your bathroom.”

“How can I warrantee work I do not know how to do?”

All of my working career I keep telling customers things like that.

I still do way too much of it.

But I was never good at it, still am not.

We did a total remodel on Linda’s bathroom when she bought the house. YES, I did it! Re-plumbed the entire bathroom and the kitchen sink drain, but I never got the drain on the bathroom vanity really right. We rain out of time. Finally it was so plugged that it just wouldn’t drain at all.

So that was one of my jobs this visit.

All week I worked to determine a better way to engineer that drain so it would work better.

Trips to the plumbing store, drawing schematics, the whole thing. Today I had it all figured out, bought the last parts and took the unneeded ones back. Only then did I take the drain loose. When it was apart I discovered that the original plumber, or maybe the one after the original had made a bad mistake. The drain pipe went into the wall with a tight 90º turn, then went level, or uphill for a foot or so before dropping to the trunk line.

There was no way to make it work really well without changing that drain. SO back to the plumbing store 4 more times. All new drain, in a different location, with a straight shot to that trunk line and a sack of 'new' extra parts!

And tonight the water runs out as fast as it goes in.

The drain pipe is on the far side of the vanity and is nicely hidden from view. Only a 3” hole remains in the wall where the old drain was, and I’ll do a number on that later.

I am still not a plumber. A real plumber would have come in, looked around, made a shopping list, disappeared and had it all back together in less than two hours.

I put in all day (we had dinner at 8, normally we eat at 4), I shopped and schemed all week.

But the drain works like it was supposed to.

I am tired, my hands are covered with black pipe glue (which does not come off easily) and I am going to take a shower and go to bed early. Sometimes I think I am getting too old for such foolishness, but if I say then I am for sure.

And, I am still not a plumber.