Thank You Father
When I was five-years-old I watched my father and a couple of his friends rip half the roof off the house and add an addition that would double the size of the house. In high school, I helped him renovate a house and in college we build a house together followed by a 24′ by 24′ workshop.
My father had a great influence on me and provided a solid foundation in the DIY world even though I’ve slowly moved away from them over the past 20 years. With those experiences stored away in my brain, I figured I could channel my father to repair a few pinhole leaks that appeared in the 78-year-old copper pipes in the basement of our house.
Thank You Sharkbite
Originally, this was going to be a post about a recent ride on my Vespa. Duty and responsibility took precedence though and I wanted to at least post something about the last couple days being consumed by plumbing.
Until this project, all my water line work has been with copper and soldered joints. I don’t enjoy doing it, it’s slow, and there always seems to be a leak requiring the draining the system and re-soldering. I can’t remember now how I stumbled on the idea of using Sharkbite connectors with PEX pipe but I am glad I did. Without going into detail about cost, technique or the pros and cons, I’ll just say that it was faster, cheaper, and easier to install than sweating copper solder joints.
The entire process of removing the old pipes (no easy task as the “few” pinhole leaks in a three-foot section of hot water pipe expanded to 60 feet of hot and cold water lines along with numerous valves and joints.) turned out to be almost meditative and relaxing. My father used to tell me that’s why he enjoyed it so much. It’s taken me until now to experience that state and started channeling my father.
Or this revelation — I will never choose to work with copper again unless there is absolutely no other choice.
If you’re not familiar with PEX and Sharkbite Connectors and have some DIY plumbing in your future, take a long look at the option. The video below will give a quick overview.
More Vespa and motorcycle content soon!
Wow…besides the passages about working with your Dad (my,/i>work experiences with my Dad ended at about age ten, sadly, but the memory burns most brightly), I think about the work done on extending the house wife and me live in: since the extension involved ripping out the entire kitchen and main bathroom, all the pipng was replace with PEX, with very little copper remaining, save for direct connection to the water heater and such. (Color-coding is useful to plumbing Nimrods like me.) I was initially suspicious of whether the new stuff would hole up as well as good ol’ copper, but it appears my fears were unfounded.
On the scooter front: Rode with the Jersey Shore Chaos Crew for our first ride of the year last Saturday. A fun time was had by all, but it appears Melody developed a problem that hasn’t gone away: if I start her up with ASR/traction control engaged, she stalls out, but not the way you’d think…all forward momentum stops, but the engine still runs, and the ASR/EFI light flashes rapidly. If I turn ASR off, however, all is hunky-dory. I’m hoping it’s just a matter of recalibrating things, but I’ll know better tomorrow when I make the first proper attempt.
Plumbing nimrods…. I like that. Sums up my feelings about my skills. I think PEX has been around now for 23 years and is still fine. That would get me almost to age 90. By then I won’t be worried about pipe replacements because I’ll have lots of money from winning the PowerBall and having a number of best-selling novels about an old man and his Vespa.
I wonder if Melody’s ASR/EFI circuits have somehow gotten mixed up with the Immobilizer? Whatever it is it sounds like a job for a Vespa technician. Lesson… it’s why you always need a spare machine to ride while one is in the shop!
Ain’t technology wonderful!!! Now, if the Vespa Italians could just figure that out.
It would be nice if everything on the Vespa was easily accessible. That said, if that’s all I have to complain about then I am living a blessed life.
That’s cool. Didn’t know that about you and your father’s “handyness.” Where I grew up, everyone did their own plumbing, wiring, wood repair, etc.
I’ve lost the desire over the years to be handy. And when I am now I confess a sloppiness that suggests how much I don’t like it anymore.
But every now and again it does feel good to get my hands dirty and lose myself in a project.
Years ago I installed many feet of PVC pipe for a washing machine. So easy. Sand the ends, clean it and put a primer on it then bonding agent and press together into a sleeve. I can’t sweat pipe and I won’t try either. I used a connector with compression fittings at both ends and screwed a PVC threaded end into the side of it. Easy peasy. Years later my ex wife had a plumber re-do it and he grumbled about what cfap it was. Too bad. It worked just fine for fifteen years.
I’ve done my share of work over the years with PVC pipe. I’ve talked to a few plumbers who think it’s crap. Probably because they see their future slipping away with such easy work. Sort of like digital cameras taking away some of the magical skills necessary to be a photographer. Or anyone with Microsoft Word is now a writer!
I’ve used Pex for several projects. At home, I used an expansion tool to stretch the tubing temporarily while putting it on a fitting. Super secure method. In the RV, I use stainless steel clamping rings with a special ratcheting tool. The Shark Bite fittings seemed like an expensive way to go but you can remove them with a special tool. Personally, I enjoy sweating Cu fittings but they are getting more and more expensive.
There certainly are a lot more options now. I looked at the expansion tool method for PEX but opted for the Sharkbite stuff out of pure laziness.
I’m in the middle of a redesign now of the water systems in my darkroom. Part of me, the lazy part, wants to run all the pipes outside the walls and sink so I can see them and get to them without crawling around or cutting out walls if there’s a problem.
Currently, I’m trying to convince myself that the blue and red PEX pipes will add a nice splash of color to the white walls and sink.
There is something relaxing about sweating a copper joint, watching the flame of the torch, seeing the solder transform from solid to liquid, but beyond that it’s all a nightmare to me.