Do you know where YOUR water shut-off valve is?
Our water woes really became noticeable when Rach visited & took a shower &.... flooded the kitchen. OK, i exaggerate. But it's never particularly uplifting when water is falling from the ceiling. It's also not terribly pleasant when your washing machine is spewing water all over the basement. Also not so good when water is dumping out of your freezer. Then, just to top things off, the showerhead won't stop leaking.
First order of business was to get the washer fixed. The guy came over yesterday (very early in the morning, i might add) and charged us to tell us that our washer is fine, it's our drains that are clogged. D'oh. So, the plumber came & cut us a deal & cleaned out all of our pipes. Nice guy. Also showed me how to remove a little pin from the valve unit in the shower (because apparently it's not the showerhead's fault). He said to take that pin to the hardware store, & then I could fix the shower.
But first, last night, we tried to re-caulk the shower so water wouldn't fall into the kitchen anymore. But the leaky showerhead didn't really let that happen too well, washing away much of my work despite a foolproof towel/bucket fix.
So today I went down to Saffron Supply, the coolest old dirtiest random plumbing/hardware store ever, right downtown, and showed them the pin from the shower & they came back with all the new junk I'd need & told me how to do it, and photocopied a page from a Moen manual. (They knew all this just from seeing the little pin, like the plumber said they would). I also told them other random stuff I needed (a screen for the bathtub drain, a clamp for the washing machine spout), and they rummaged through their boxes & pulled everything out for me. I actually knew the guy working there (fellow Reel Film Snobs volunteer), and he gave me a tour of the building, which has been a hardware store since like 1890. It was amazing & creepy & had all sorts of additions & boarded up windows & sides of other buildings with their signs still painted on. It was cool.
So, fixed the shower. Called the city to find the water valve. It's in the sidewalk, duh. Gonna re-re-caulk tomorrow. Jim & I are plumbing masters. sorta.
oh- freezer water problem is still rather undetermined. not related to drains. Probably more related to the already-broken ice maker. Whatevah.
Ethan entered Mozart's upstairs lair today. (insert suspensful music here....)