{"id":7985,"date":"2012-07-29T21:02:57","date_gmt":"2012-07-29T20:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=7985"},"modified":"2012-07-29T23:09:17","modified_gmt":"2012-07-29T22:09:17","slug":"hi-im-in-bed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=7985","title":{"rendered":"Knackered (confessions of a plumber, part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

7.30pm, Sunday 29th July 2012. Day two of the London Olympics if you need another time reference.<\/p>\n

I am in bed.<\/p>\n

Yes, that’s right. 7.30pm.<\/p>\n

I am, by every description you could apply, knackered.<\/p>\n

There have been so many things going on, so I’ll just fill you in on one thing – one thing that I’ve been working on for the last few weekends.<\/p>\n

I’ve been repairing a shower.<\/p>\n

It is a little known fact that I’m very competent DIY-er.<\/p>\n

I just choose to hide it.<\/p>\n

Carpentry, plumbing, electrical work; I can do any of these things to a very competent, semi-professional level.<\/p>\n

I just can’t be bothered (or interested) to do it for myself, when I can pay a professional tradesman to do it, while I’m getting on with something else; something that I want to do.<\/p>\n

Not something that I have to do.<\/p>\n

But I am a sucker for a pretty face, and a maiden in distress will, in certain circumstances, get me in to all sorts of trouble.<\/p>\n

And that has been the beginning of a number of downfalls that I’ve walked, open armed and wide-eyed, in to.<\/p>\n

The bathroom shower, I was told, had a persistent leak.<\/p>\n

Actually, that was putting it mildly.<\/p>\n

That one bathroom shower was probably responsible for the entire south of England water shortage.<\/p>\n

‘Probably just a simple washer replacement’, I had told myself, the night before.<\/p>\n

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I pitched up, the next morning, with my toolkit.<\/p>\n

I thought ‘take half an hour to fit a new washer, spend the rest of my life being adored and idolised as a total hero, and have maidens far and wide flock to my feet to tend my every whim’.<\/p>\n

I walked in to the bathroom, threw back the shower curtain and found myself staring at:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The trouble is, as you will have just realised, in control-surface terms, that’s all there was to look at.<\/p>\n

The rest of the shower – the actual mixing cassette (where the flows of hot and cold water are blended in to a single flow) and the flow and temperature control mechanisms were actually out of sight.
\nHidden inside a false wall.<\/p>\n

Stunning.<\/p>\n

I took a (very) deep breath, switched off the water main and began dismantling the controls.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

First I removed the faceplate<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Then I removed the water flow control<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Then I removed the outer temperature control arm<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Then I removed and dismantled the mixer control gears<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Then I took a very deep breath and cut the waterproof sealant, and removed the backing plate from the wall.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Nestling six inches inside the wall was a large, square, brass cover, with the inside of the flow control pointing at me.<\/p>\n

The brass cover was fastened with a screw in each corner.<\/p>\n

Problem the first, immediately became apparent.<\/p>\n

The hole in the wall that I had to work in, was a mere three centimetres wider, than the size of the large brass cover.<\/p>\n

Somehow, to move forward, I would have to remove those four, deeply set, screws, using a\u00a0technique familiar to\u00a0gynaecologists and watchmakers.<\/p>\n

Not plumbers.<\/p>\n

While I was mentally regrouping I did what all good British workmen would do.<\/p>\n

I asked for a cup of tea and a slice of toast.<\/p>\n

Then I walked over the road to the village shop, where I bought a packet of BluTack (other adhesive putties are available).<\/p>\n

Back in the bathroom, tea and toast appropriately disposed of, the careful application of BluTack on the end of a very long screwdriver carefully removed the screws.<\/p>\n

It would be no exaggeration to say it was like a bomb-disposal scene.<\/p>\n

I had just enough gap to slide the screwdriver in and, very, very carefully, ease each undone (but firmly attached) screw, one by one, through the tiny gap.<\/p>\n

When I’d removed the large brass cover, I fiddled and worried the mixing cartridge out of its seat and through the tiny gap.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The troublesome, leaking device nestled wetly in the palm of my hand.<\/p>\n

Bugger.<\/p>\n

I quickly realised that the mixer cartridge had no standard washers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Instead, the mixer had twelve (yes, twelve!) O-rings, and four (yes, four!) internal washers.<\/p>\n

And each O-ring was a different size.<\/p>\n

And each washer was a different size.<\/p>\n

And none of them were any of the three main standard plumbing sizes.<\/p>\n

I admitted defeat.<\/p>\n

I reassembled the whole bloody thing.<\/p>\n

Reseating the screws, using the BluTack and long screwdriver, was once again like a bomb disposal scene.<\/p>\n

I resealed the backing plate on to the wall, turned the water back on and sat in the bathroom.<\/p>\n

Feeling beaten.<\/p>\n

I was almost deafened by the fast-flowing drip-drip-drip-drip of the leak-from-hell.<\/p>\n

Four hours, in case you’re wondering.<\/p>\n

That’s how long it took.<\/p>\n

So I got on the internet, and found the incredibly helpful, Glasgow-based, Shower Docto<\/a>r.<\/p>\n

They advised me that I might need a new mixer cartridge (we estimated the old one had been fitted 20 years ago), but I might be able to get away with a service kit.<\/p>\n

A new mixer cartridge was over \u00a3120. A service kit was three times cheaper.<\/p>\n

I opted for the cheaper.<\/p>\n

Three days later a package arrived from Glasgow.<\/p>\n

Yippee!<\/p>\n

I arranged to revisit the shower at the weekend.<\/p>\n

(to be continued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7.30pm, Sunday 29th July 2012. Day two of the London Olympics if you need another time reference. I am in bed. Yes, that’s right. 7.30pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}