Monday, January 12, 2009

Water Woes

I'm taking a time-out from fretting about my boobs to fret about our plumbing. I feel like this weekend, everything in our house that could leak water began to do so.

It all started Saturday, when Corey felt productive. He scraped paint away from the vent controls, so we can turn off the heat in the bedrooms we don't use. "Hey! I turned off the heat in your office," he told me. As if I don't spend 8 hours a day in that room five days per week. "Don't forget to keep the door closed."

So then he tried to address the snoring sound our toilet makes. It's a very loud snore, and has been getting worse lately. He discovered that the snoring sound is not a malfunctioning valve as we had thought, but actually a slow water leak. This explains, I think, why our water bill doubled last month from $20 to $40.

My entire upstairs bathroom is dismantled and the water to the toilet is totally turned off, and it's been this way since Saturday. For a pregnant lady, this is a nightmare. I feel like I'm on Survivor when I have to walk down 2 flights of stairs to pee in the middle of the night. I've been trying to parch myself before bed so as not to have to walk through the heatless rooms in my pajamas. I told him if he doesn't turn the toilet back on today, I'm peeing in the tub.

The lag in toilet fixing is understandable, though, because the kitchen sink started to leak. Not just a subtle drip, but a steady stream of water flowing, flowing, flowing into the sink. So he had to fix that. And then as he was finishing the job, the fridge water spout began to explode all over the place. So he was examining that until well past midnight last night.

After a weekend of panic, we have one repaired sink, but still have a snoring toilet and aren't able to use the water dispenser in the fridge until we find out why the water from there is leaky and brown. Could be, perhaps, more upsetting than hard-to-contain breasts. Maybe.

2 comments:

PeaceLoveMath said...

As extremely handy as Paul is, we both learned that plumbing in an old old old house is NOT for the casual handyman to tinker with. Paul tried to fix something with our shower shortly after we moved it, and then I happened to go down in the basement while Paul was in the shower, only to find that water was pouring into the crawlspace and running through the old rusty air conditioner and into the drain in front of the washing machine. So now I remind Paul of that time whenever he gets it in his head to look at the plumbing himself, and then we just call the landlord, who calls his plumber. It's not worth it - just call the plumber!!

kk said...

I don't know why the fridge water is brown but I have found out that when you are working on the plumbing and turning water off and on it cause the fridge water to pour out unexpectatly. (Been there done that.) Something about air getting in the lines when being turned off and on. So they may be the problem with the fridge. Maybe the brown water also has to do with that. Do you have a well or city water? because if it is a well and brown water that could be trouble:+)