Knocking off a Project

 The outside faucet had been dripping for over a year.   I have meant to fix that drip but its so insignificant, I let it go.

However the arrival of the water bill this month, that was over a hundred dollars for basic use, freaked me out a little bit.   Our city water sewer bills are very very high, in the top ten highest in the state.   Why?  I have no clue.   Now they keep adding on fees to the water bill, like stormwater charges.   $10 a month added on just for that.

So a tiny drip became huge on my mind.  But tiny drips tend to become big drips and even gushers over time.

I consulted youtube, my how to go to.

I turned off the water at the meter.   I used a crescent wrench to do it, but it wasn't that easy because you swivel a valve until two round holes, one in the swivel part and one fixed, line up.   Those two holes exist so if you don't pay your water bill, they turn it off, by lining up the holes and put a padlock through the holes.  There was barely any space, in the hole where the meter and shut off were located, for turning a wrench.  Beyond the meter, a few inches, was a red faucet valve.  I figured that was my official water turn off, but I couldn't get it to budge.  So I resorted to official water turn off method, with lining up the two holes on the shut off other side of meter.

I unscrewed the faucet valve then and removed it, then I unscrewed the innard packing nut.  I expected to pull out a small stem.  Instead it was ten inches long, unscrewed from inside the pipe.  My brother later told me that's a frost free stem.  It extend to pipes under the house, to reduce the chance of pipes freezing.  

I saw that the washer inside the packing nut and at the valve stem end were trashed.  Both needed replaced.  Off to Home Depot, with the parts, to match the size.

I handed the parts to the plumbing guy in that section.  He'd just told a man customer about turning off the water and replacing washers, to stop his leak and had been very courteous to him about it.  So when I handed him the part and requested washer replacements that would fit I didn't expect what I got.  

He snatched the part from me, didn't know how it worked or even what it was, and then floundered for ten minutes trying to find washers, refusing to give the part back, so I could look and becoming quite control freakish and treating me like I was an idiot.  OMG, I thought, they're simple washers and rather standard sizes. 

 I finally got the part back after he gave up, went to the hardware section, searched for anything that might work, found something the wrong size and too thin but thought if I cut them to size and stacked, they might work.   Walked away to look for something else I needed.  

Then I got the notion, no way, I'm just going to Harbor Freight.  I went back to put those inappropriate pieces back and there was the same clerk, helping a guy who had also been in plumbing, and was now at the washer drawers.  I hung to the side, just wanting to slip those ones I wasn't going to use back into their rightful drawer.  When he answered the phone, and was busy talking to someone on his phone, I leaned forward and tried to put them back, and he held his phone away from his ear, and gave me a look, and told me off, that he was helping someone else, to wait my turn.  I didn't say a word, and left, leaving the washers on a counter.  I was so freaked out by the clerk, that I fumbled at self check out trying to get the two small items I wanted, and forgot my change at the self check out machine.  I don't think I'll be going back to Home Depot for awhile, not that one anyway.

I was also a little freaked out because I needed to get that valve back into the faucet, so I could actually have water at my house, whether or not it still dripped or not.   I had tried to find a plumber supply store with a good variety of washers, but the first one I went to said they don't carry stuff like that and no other supply store did anymore either, since Home Depot and Lowe's came to town.  So I resigned myself to trying those stores.  I know the big box store employees often know nothing, however.  

I quickly found a clamshell of plumbing washers at Harbor Freight.  Sure they are cheap and more foam than rubber and won't last too long, but all four washer parts the size I needed were in that clamshell.  Didn't take long to reassemble the faucet with new washers and turn the water back on.  Back in business.   

I'm not a social butterfly and the last year of isolation hasn't helped my social skills any.  I try to remember family birthdays at least.  But I forgot to send my nephew a card on time.  I finally texted him, got a short response, but nothing further, like when I asked him if the date I thought was his birthday really is.   I finally called him but got no answer, left him a birthday message.  All you can do with noncommunicative relatives.   At least I sent a birthday card to my sister in law during the right month (I think).    The family I have is minimal--two brothers and their adult kids.  None of the two brothers kids communicate with me and I rarely see either brother particularly the Idaho one, whom I haven't seen in years now, since they moved there, outside of about five minutes when they were at my nephews wedding a couple years ago.   That's life but it can be kind of lonely.