Home Improvement

There's an old fashioned cast iron claw footed bathtub in my house. It's a long tub and I can lie back and luxuriate if I desire to take lengthy bath, but I rarely choose to do that. The quick, morning shower is my usual choice. The down side of such a tub is that the only practical way to interface a shower with it is by using an adapter that doesn't seem to last more than a few years.

The last such time a new adapter was in order (because the women were getting tired of wedging a plastic razor handle under the diverter knob) I decided to tackle the project myself. I found a new adapter at The Home Depot and after an hour or so of work it was in and almost as good as new. There was just the tiniest spray of water coming from the collar that attached the pipe to the rest of the plumbing and with one more small nudge of the wrench all should have been perfectly well until I heard and felt the most awful snap!

I ruined the entire thing.

Figuring I had nothing to lose I called The Home Depot and asked to speak to the manager. When he came on the line I started with, "Do you have an I bought something at your store, brought it home, tried to install it myself, and ruined it completely so we'll give you a new one free policy?" After he finished laughing the manager asked me what had happened. I told him the whole story, including that it was my own fault that the thing broke. "Bring it it and we'll give you a new one," he replied in a friendly tone. I did. And then I called the plumber.

Treat me well, and I'm a customer for life. The Home Depot gets ALL of my home improvement business unless they don't have something I need and another local place does.

Recently, for a while I contended with a toilet that kept spritzing water into the bowl long after the flush and fill cycle completed. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why it was doing that until I reached into the tank to poke around only to have the overfill pipe crack right off. It was on that run to The Home Depot a few days ago that I snapped the shot above. Surprisingly, replacing the pipe was a breeze until the smallest drip at the end needed to be fixed. Imagine the litany I delivered when I was tightening the bolt that attaches the tank to the bowl and felt the head of the bolt snap off. Another run to The Depot? Haha! Not this time. At the suggestion of the helpful guy at the store I'd bought the full tank kit and had a new bolt right here at the ready. I can flush! Life is good!

I made it out on the scooter for a while this afternoon. I stopped a few blocks from the house to pull on my gloves, and after about a half an hour of riding and a run to Sheetz to fill the tire that keeps leaking slowly I needed to come back to thaw myself out. It wasn't all that cold, really, but with the miserable head cold that I'm battling I felt frozen. Perhaps when the rain ends in a few days I'll be able to take the BV to work for the first time since the beginning of the school year. Well, if there's little risk of sneezing into the visor of my helmet, that is!