Mom wanted another external faucet, so with my assistance, my handyman-father regretably set out to install one, and almost succeeded.
My mom had wanted to add an external faucet to the side of the house that didn't have one so she could water her plants more easily. Dad and I went to McLendon's hardware store, bought 40 feet of 3/4" copper pipe, a faucet bib, and miscellaneous fittings for around $50. We then crawled under the house, which is our very own slice of hell. It is cramped and requires sliding on one's belly to pass under ventilation ducts and wood beams. There is plastic on the ground, but the plastic is filthy throughout, missing in places, and occasionally, wet. There is fiberglass insulation above, and dust everywhere, which probably contains fiberglass slivers, dried cat feces, and rat feces. The builders splattered concrete from the bases of the vertical supports, and the result is very rough on the knees and elbows, scraping or bruising when crawled over. Our first problem was the pipe had to either go through a 4x10 or under it; we chose under, so we needed four additional right-angle fittings. The next problem was a 6 inch cement foundation that we had to bore through with a 1 1/4 inch bit. We went to Home Depot and rented a rotohammer, which is a 1300 watt percussive drill with a large carbide bit, and picked up the fittings. The drill came to around $40 for 4 hours (including $3.50 for damage insurance), and the fittings were perhaps $10. The drill worked fine until we ran into some rebar, at which it balked. We tried a smaller bit and drill and then chiseling on it. After a half-hour, we were finally able to wear it away enough to resume with the rotohammer. We passed the pipes in through the hole, and proceeded to solder, starting at the faucet. Aside from the silver (lead-free) solder not working very well and then running out, things went ok. We next shut off the water to the house, opened every faucet to cold, and let the water drain. After a few minutes, we cut into a pipe and drained it. The severed pipe released a quick gallon, but it didn't stop with that; it kept dripping. So we opened faucets for hot water, and more water came forth. We decided to let it peter out while we ate dinner. Mom cooked and washed with a garden hose attached to a neighbor's house. An hour later, it was still dripping at around one Hertz. I checked the water meter near the street, and it indicated nothing was incoming. We decided to tackle it anew the next morn. Unfortunately, the incontinent pipe was still dripping the next day. We were baffled as to wherefrom the water came. We emptied what we could locally by blowing or manually pulling out the water and attempted to solder anyway, which didn't entirely work. The water was dripping in at a rate that exceeded what we could boil off with the torch, and so the pipe section failed to reach the melting point for solder (370° F). I wasn't ready to give up. But we hadn't showered, and my dad's rate of vulgarities was reaching a crescendo. He decided that rather than desoldering, cutting, making another trip to a hardware store, and spending another day, he would call a plumber. My dad has never called a plumber in his life. There weren't many plumbers working on the Fourth of July weekend, but we found an expensive but reputable one; he came out immediately and for $40 estimated that it would cost $460 to fix (including $60 for limited access and $350 for copper pipe work). My dad agreed. The plummer cut out our aborted attempt, plugged up the water with a rag, which soaked and dried much of the water out temporarily, and installed a ball valve. With the valve open, it doesn't accumulate water while being soldered. Once installed and closed, it isolates the other connections from the drip. Voila. We now have a new external faucet, costing $600, about ten times what we initially expected.
Posted by seander at July 8, 2003 09:20 AM