Running Water

Running water is important. When I first bought the Money Pit, my inspector had informed me that there were problems with the toilets and problems with some of the faucets leaking. I figured I could take care of the minor plumbing problems on my own.

So when time came to take possession of the house, I went hunting for the main shut-off valve. However, I had trouble trying to figure out where they hid it. I tried following the pipes from the heater. I found the hot water shut-off behind a basement bulkhead that I had to punch a hole through. Some idiot had to place the ceiling there with no access.

I thought I would find the main shut-off behind a basement wall. My general inspector and the termite inspector both warned me there was crawl space inaccessible because the basement was in the way. So I had to punch a hole through a wall in order to get to the hidden crawl space. I didn't find the shut-off there either.

So I ended up going the other way, and found the shut-off was hiding in plain site. It was placed under the garden hose outlet. I don't know how I feel about that. It's a strange place for it I think. Maybe that's just the way old houses were built. Maybe it was also part of some bad renovation (which the Money Pit has a lot of.)

So I switched it off. However, it didn't shut off completely. So I Yelped for a plumber and found Quality Plus Plumbing with a very good rating. He replaced the valve for $215. That's a little more expensive than I'd like but I think that's the fair market value for a good plumber doing an hour or so of work. He did a good job. It wasn't something I could do myself. I didn't have the knowledge nor equipment to solder, or cut pipe. He was prompt, came by when he said he would, provided an estimate and scheduled a time to come back. Again he was prompt and performed the repair without incident. He even gave me a new spout for the hose, and some insulation around the pipe. Although I don't think it ever freezes in Santa Clara but hey, you never know.

So on my way to taking down toilets and sinks in the bathrooms so I could fix all leaks, I made one worse I think. The master bathroom used a Delta fixture. Unfortunately, it was leaking so I attempted to take it apart and replace the seals. The thing about Delta is that they are notorious for breaking apart when amateurs attempt to work with it. The problem is that instead of a good solid block of metal to the valve, they have these two very small wimpy soft copper tubes. I think they do that to piss off people like me. So if you don't know what you're dealing with, you end up twisting the soft copper pipes right off the main pipe located deep into the wall, which is what I did. So with an open pipe that would just spray gallons of water into the walls, (bathtubs do not have local shut-off valves apparently) there was no way I could fix that thing myself. So it was either have no running water, or call Shibli again at Quality Plus Plumbing to fix the thing.

Again he came by to evaluate. He informed me that he sees this mistake often, and that there's a trick to un-seize the valve so it comes off without breaking the soft copper tubes. Just trying to apply pressure like I did, will just break the thing. He provided me a couple ways to save money, like breaking the wall in the closet myself to get to the pipe in the bathroom. Which I was going to, until he realized that the wall was plaster and lath. So he recommended that he just go through the tile surrounding the valve. He recommended that instead of replacing the tile, that he could get this large metallic covering to cover the hole instead of having to re-tile the bathtub. He said he does this for apartments and since I am not so concerned about the bathtub it might be a good option to save money, which I jumped at. The cost for all that work was about $400. I'd recommend Shibli to anyone. I take comfort, when it comes to plumbing in knowing the job was getting done right. Sure you might find cheaper, but those places are a shot in the dark.

Plumbing is something that requires a bit of know-how and experience to do it correctly, otherwise you'll be doing it a second time in the near future. Then you have to couple that with someone who will be polite and respectful about coming into your home. Take a read through all the 1 star reviews on plumbers on Yelp. It isn't pretty.