September 16 '96
Volume 13
Things That Go Bump In The
A.M.
First a cat
keeps
me awake nights in Greenville, and now something else has found a way to
annoy me in the mornings. As I prepared to go to work last Monday, I kept
hearing a rattling or vibrating type noise..brat.at.at.at.at.at. My first
thought was my pager on the chest of drawers was in vibrate mode, and I was
being paged, but the sound did not come from that area. It really seemed
to be coming from outside.
Our neighbors dog often plays with a plastic bucket that he drags around
and bangs on, so I thought maybe he had found a new annoyance and was the
contributor of the sounds. Barbara does not hear low pitched sounds as well
as I do, but she, too, noticed the racket and asked me what it was. I explained
that I thought it was the neighbors dog.
Since I was running a little ahead of schedule, I took time to wash and squeegee
the windshield of my car. I heard the sound again, and it seemed to be around
back of the house. I walked to the backyard and did not see the neighbors
dog anywhere, nor could I locate the racket maker. After a moment, the sound
occurred again, only now it sounded like it came from the side of the house.
I checked the side, but nothing was there. I decided to look on the roof
. I walked into the edge of the flower bed that lies adjacent to the fence
of the dog, to get a glimpse of the roof at the back of the house.
Because the water heater in our house is gas fired, a vent is required. The
contraption that attaches to the top of the water heater and extends through
the roof for about 2 feet, has a flat top with 4 beveled sides containing
air vents. There atop the vent, sat a large adult flicker, a member of the
woodpecker family. I could see warm air currents rising from the vent. Why
the bird chose this for a perch
escapes me. Perhaps he just had cold feet, but perhaps the rust color of
the vent fooled him into thinking he was on a wooden surface. He continued
to hammer his bill against the metal surface and produce the same noises
I had heard earlier. My strange sound source now located, I got in the car
and left for work.
You have to wonder who the first person was to use the derogatory phrase,
bird-brain to taunt a less than intellectually gifted human,
but when you observe a woodpecker drilling away at a piece of rusted sheet
metal, you can sort of understand the meaning behind the phrase. There are
probably a few ornithologists who would declare the creature just did not
get the proper amount of nutrition back in the nest. There are
probably at least a handful of animal rights activists who, if they knew
what had taken place, would want to haul me into court for not taking the
necessary precautions to prevent the woodpecker from having a landing platform
on my vent, thereby, in my negligence, providing a climate ripe for injuring
their client and depriving said client of said clients means to earn
said clients livelihood.(Diagram that, if you please.)
DIY Plumber
Early Saturday morning, my wife said to me, "We need another one of these
things that fits on the end of the kitchen faucet."
"Whats wrong with it?" I asked.
"It sprays water," said Barbara.
"I thought it was supposed to," was my sarcastic reply.
"From here?" she questioned while pointing to a thin stream of water that
was somehow exiting sideways from the bottom of the faucet aerator, oblivious
to the fact that the rest of its water buddies were plunging straight down
into the sink below.
"Aw, it just probably needs a good cleaning," I chided.
Still smarting from having paid a Greenville plumber $60.00 to replace a
washer in a simple bathroom faucet, I decided to handle this chore myself.
After all, it would not require special tools or turning off the water to
the house at the water meter. Finger pressure alone would not allow me to
remove the aerator, so I fetched a pair of pliers. Actually, they were vice
grips, because Jason has been working on his classic automobile just often
enough to have misplaced practically every tool or wrench that I once had
a pretty good idea as to where it could be found in our utility room.
It does not take any special skill or plumbing knowledge to disassemble,
inspect and clean away any particulates that may have collected inside an
aerator. It does, however, take a big man to recognize when something should
be replaced and not just shorn up, thus delaying the inevitable. In making
this determination, it is also a big help to the big man, when that which
is in need of replacement, doesnt respond to the treatment given it.
The water hydrant outside my backdoor, and just inside the carport had developed
a hairline crack in its casting in the past couple of weeks, so I decided
to find a replacement for it while I was shopping for an aerator. I drove
over to a plumbing and electrical supply store to make the needed purchases.
"Naw, we dont have one of those," said the clerk. "Whose got one?"
was my terse response.
The young clerk replied, "I dont know, but they might have one down
at True Value Hardware."
I wondered, "What kind of plumbing place does not sell faucet fixings?" as
I drove to the hardware store.
Not only did the hardware store have them, they had an assortment of them.
They even had a sizer with threaded holes, so you could figure which size
you needed by testing the old one. As Paul Harvey would say, "Now thats,
thats, thats True Value." The hardware store owner even pointed
out which outdoor faucet he sold was American made and which was imported.
I chose the American made product. The owner asked if I did this kind of
work often. "No more than I have too," I replied, as he pointed to the pipe
dope (a compound for sealing pipe connections). "Ive got the Teflon
tape or the squeeze tube, One is 89 and one is 99," he stated. I selected
the tape. (Less mess you know, and the principle reason that I am not a plumber
today is hinged on the word mess. Okay, I dont like spiders, and snakes
either, and either can be found in the areas where plumbers are often called
to work.)
The aerator installation was quick and simple. The outdoor faucet replacement
would require turning off the water at the water meter. The water department
folks have a special tool that makes quick work of turning off the water
supply. I dont own one, but I think there should be a law that states
a house can not be bought or sold unless the water supply turn-off
tool is included. It should be included in the cost of the water hookup
of all new homes, too. Without this simple tool, a simple task can assume
gargantuan proportions.
The last home of my parents had more than its share of inadequacies. It did,
however, have a satisfactory solution for shutting off the flow of water
to the house. That old house was built on a foundation with the floor about
3 feet above the ground. In a back bedroom there arose from the floor a metal
rod that formed an upside down L and provided the leverage needed to shut
off the water valve under ground and vertically below the bedroom floor.
Occasionally a child might dislodge the rod from the small square hole into
which it so neatly fitted in the water valve. Most of the time, the rod could
be manipulated into place short of making a trip under the house. "They
dont makeem like they used to" seems to fit about here.
My water valve is sunk about 18 inches below the ground and is functionally
inaccessible for a pipe wrench. It is enclosed by a cast iron device that
supports a removable cover and forms a retaining wall around the water
meters digital dial and oft buried water valve. By clever manipulation
of a crescent wrench combined with a pipe wrench, a few busted
knuckles, several grunts and groans, at least one inaudible cuss
word, and a pinch of patience, the task of shutting off the water supply
was accomplished.
The removal of the exterior water faucet and the installation of the replacement
faucet was a breeze compared to getting the water shut off. Close wrench
work alongside the brick wall from which the faucet protrudes, kept me cautious
of my bleeding knuckles. The Teflon tape did a neat job as a pipe sealant.
The work required to reopen the water valve was somewhat less than that required
to close it, but was by no means a simple task.
The feeling of accomplishment, the satisfaction provided by a successful
do-it-yourself project, helped to offset the earlier sense of exasperation.
The monetary savings are negligible if you put a dollar value on your own
time to complete a project such as this, but it is the independent and
self-reliant spirit that carved a nation out of this land we call America,
that makes such tasks enjoyable.
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