10:12 p.m. - 2009-10-22
On the Installation of the New Faucet: A Chronicle
The plumbing in our house falls into two categories. First, there's the original plumbing, installed around three centuries ago and no doubt involving the same variety of lead-lined aquaduct that supposedly drove the Romans insane. The second category consists of additional work done not too long before we moved in, an extremely half-assed agglomeration of haphazardly assembled PVC pipe, a fugly bathroom sink, and several gaping holes in the floor next to the claw-footed tub where the pipes go that allow water to seep into the living room ceiling below. We deal with the decrepit old fixtures and haphazard PVC on a case-by-case basis, and mostly turn a blind eye toward the fugly sink. The holes in the floor, though. I thought we had taken care of those. Until a week ago, when the leaking returned.
What to do, when the leaking occurs? Personally, I don't mind bouts of minor precipitation, indoors or out. However, indoor precipitation CAN lead to water damage, or so I've been told, and should therefore be addressed in its early stages. Investigating the source of the leak, I made several observations: 1) The faucet/shower we attached to our clawtub years ago was in terrible shape, with leakage coming from the side of the spout where metal fatigue had taken place; 2) For a couple years now, there's been a mysterious leak under the clawtub that had been contained with a pie pan under the drain that I had to remember to empty periodically, but in recent weeks the flow grew stronger so that I was emptying the drip pan with increasing frequency and a couple of times it overflowed, but that didn't seem like a big deal, since years ago we had patched up the gaps in the floor with expanding spray foam that I later discovered 3) is made for INSULATION, not WATER-PROOFING, right, but here's a thing: 4) after some research I discovered that the under-the-tub leaking was going on when the SHOWER was running, but not when the BATHTUB FAUCET was flowing.
WHAT WAS GOING ON?
NEXT: PART II
