Monday, February 18, 2008

My surprise day off.

I didn't have to go to work today. That was my surprise. I didn't even realize it until last night at about 10PM.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew.... but I hadn't applied that knowledge to this day.

So I fixed my leaky shower faucet.

This has been my intention for about 5 months. Well, today, I finally did it.Here I am removing the old faucet. I was afraid that that pipe would break. It took a lot of WD40 and elbow grease to make it budge. Not to mention getting the faucet handle off!
This website helped a lot HammerZone. It helped me realize that I could get the handles off.
I didn't know if I should pull with all my might and possibly break a pipe or just call a plumber.

What I found out was that the handle SHOULD pull off, but was "welded" with corrosion -- scale and calcium deposits. ICK! What worked was several shots of WD 40, a bit of time to let it sink in and then gentle tapping of the faucet (wrapped in paper towels so I wouldn't damage the chrome) until a firm yank would free the crud enough to pull the whole handle off. It was a bitch.
Here I am holding my nemesis. I look like a boy. No make up, gross hair. Gag. Oh well, I was doing MAN WORK.
This faucet stem actually looked pretty good. This was the leaky one. The non-leaky one actually had a broken bit of metal right on the end and a totally corroded washer. I decided at the ACE hardward to replace the whole thing.
Each new stem cost 14.99. I had to soak the old faucet handles in vinegar to get the scale off. That took some time and more elbow grease.

Now they don't leak!
TA DAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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