Home Work

We dug into the Job Jar yesterday and today. First was the dishwasher. Our housesitter reported that it leaks badly out of the bottom as soon as he starts it. Not being able to see anything obvious through the inspection panel in the wall behind it, we called the Maytag Repairman. Yes there really are Maytag Repairmen.

He saw nothing either and after analyzing the situation, suggested that it sounded like a rodent had chewed through the water line after the valve in the washer. He said the built-in unit had to come out of the cabinet and that we might want to do that ourselves as 1) it would take a long time at his high hourly rate and 2) he has a bad back and cannot lift. The wall oven had to come out first to give us room to lift the dishwasher up over the bamboo flooring we had added since installing it. I called my old workmate, Brian for help and after a lot of grunting, groaning and bleeding, we got everything out. I owe him a few beer! There was a lot of evidence of rodent activity in there so I suspect the repair guy was correct. He will be back tomorrow to fix it. If you live near the ocean in BC, you get the odd rodent.

Next was the shower head. When I turned it on this morning it sprayed water out over the top of the curtain. Not good. This was fixed by replacing the rain head. A fifty dollar repair.

After that it was a badly leaking drain in the main bathroom sink. I took the trap and riser out and found a clog in the pipe where it goes into the wall. I improvised a wire hook and got a lot of hair out before pushing the clog down the pipe and beyond my reach. I decided to try one trick before calling the plumber. We passed the garden hose through the window, wrapped a rag tightly around the end and pushed it into the exposed end of the pipe using the rag to form a watertight seal. Norma then turned the outside tap on full and I heard water flowing down the pipe. We had cleared the clog without a plumber! I reassembled the trap using some Teflon tape and added a wrap of Eternabond RV roof repair tape to a leaking factory solder joint in the drain pipe under the sink. No more leak.

Tomorrow I will replace the kitchen faucet in the motorhome that developed a leak over the winter. It should be an easy job as long as I can get in there and see what I am doing.