Fix it Now

My sister's bathroom from Siberia...

"Heeelp",  it was my sister screaming into the phone, she had come to the end of her rope! I calmly asked her what the problem was, as I was about 700 miles away. It finally had happened a point of no return had been reached and I was available at that moment in time. I volunteered right then and there to plumb and tile her leaky bathroom.  So I packed up my tools and headed to upstate NY. 

Very Scary

Leaking for years, plumbing from the 50's all brass pipes and no shut off valves in the entire house.  I will confess I was overwhelmed especially after I ripped down the tile wall in the shower and exposed 4 knobs of dubious origin. I am not a full-fletched plumber (you might have guessed that by now) but I had promised my sis I would help. Now my first impulse was to run to Lowe's, maybe they had a real plumber for customer service and I could relate my problems to him .But  what if they didn't?  So I made my list instead and I tried and I am saying tried, to foresee all the possible p r o b l e m s I would run into trying to create a plumbing miracle and you know what I mean. Ever heard of Blue Hawk ?

• Fast, easy installation
• No soldering, gluing or crimping                                                                                                
• we were hoping so but unfortunately that was not the case only because the problem were the ancient pipes which were thick brass. I am happy to report that at the end the Blue Hawk fittings came through for me after I took out my Saws-all and cut the pipes straight off to fit, it all came together. 

Let me just briefly mention the cast iron sink... installed no doubt with a double lifetime guarantee with elbows that were indestructible. Guess I should have known. So then Wendy and Marvin stop by (the nice neighbors) and Marvin gets his torch out and off with the elbows, now we were able to install everything else. Wahoo!                                                                                 One more thing, my sister and my nieces wound up at the local Volunteer Firehouse (Berne, NY) for showers and potti nearly every night because the water main in the basement had to be shut off as there were no shut off valves in the whole, entire house. Premature cheers would erupt when water flowed and no apparent leaks were sighted. But for some unknown reason when the sun went down a tiny leak would spring, although intermittently throughout the day, I would feel the pipes reassuring myself all was well. That's it, I was done, done, done for the day, they went to the Firehouse and I went to friends.  The tight schedule of 7 vacation days was dwindling fast, as I also had to tile the floor, install paneling around perimeter of bathroom, replace the leaky toilet and then the indestructible sink as well as tile the bathtub surround. In fact I wound up spending 10 days and then racing back to Greenville for a job interview.

                                     But all is well that ends well, see below!
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One more thing, lol, I have to give credit were credit is do. Unfortunately Lowe's was about a good 45 minutes away, so I started to shop at the local ACE Hardware store in East Berne. Wow these guys are awesome too, they really helped me a whole lot. 
​ Thank you guys, you're the best!

This is my NY crew,
​Tyler, Lacey and Eden.

​​They were awesome! 
Despite the challenges we survived ... go helpers!
​( Yes, I needed brute strength, couldn't have done it without you, thank you Tyler, love you!)

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