There are two kinds of people in this world: Do-It-Yourself people and Hire Someone to Do-It-For-You people. Wisdom is knowing which category you fall into.We are Do-It-Yourself people. Unless it involves plumbing. Then we are Hire-Someone-to-Do-It-For-Us people.
Experience has taught us that nearly every home plumbing project can and will go wrong.
There is yet a subcategory to mention: Get-Someone-in-the-Family-to-Do-It.
You must be sensitive navigating this route, as you can wear out your welcome. We try to rotate the jobs we need done among capable family members. We wouldn’t want anyone to feel slighted.
We had a cracked bathroom sink that needed replacing recently. I mentioned the eye-popping estimates we received from two plumbing companies to our son, who built the house his family lives in.
“Don’t pay someone to do that,” he said. “I can do it for you.”
“No, no,” I said. (Yes! That’s a terrific idea!)
“When would you like me to come up?”
“Oh, you’re so busy!” (Next weekend would be good.)
“How’s Saturday?” he asks.
“I think that works.” (“He’s coming!” I mouth to the husband. We jump up and down and fist bump.)
“You’ll need to get a new sink,” he says.
“Good idea. One of the plumbers who gave an estimate told us what size to get,” I say. (On order as we speak.)
“Bring the crew,” I say. (There are lots more projects to do!)
Our son and his wife came, along with their five kids, who all went directly from potty training to power tools.
When our son removed the old sink, the metal pipe broke in his hands. This is what you expect of plumbing projects.
Our daughter-in-law made the first run to the hardware store.
An hour later, remains of the old pipe had been removed and replaced, the new faucet had been installed, the cracked sink was gone and one of the boy’s heads was popping up through the opening for the sink.
A short while later our son appeared and said, “The sink doesn’t fit. It’s too small.”
This was not a surprise. We expect things to go wrong. Plus, it could have been a whole lot worse. He could have said the water valve broke, water is flooding the upstairs bathroom and pouring through the ceiling.
We wouldn’t even have raised an eyebrow. We would have calmly said, “We expected as much. Want some coffee?”
Or, he could have said the wet drywall is caving, insulation is soaked and the water main in the front yard is spewing like Old Faithful.
This would not have been surprising either. We would have said, “Oh well, maybe we’ll just move. Here, have some banana bread.”
He wanted to come back a week later and finish the job, but we said no and backed it up. We called a professional plumber. Expensive? Yes.
But the house is still standing, and so is the family.