Failure work of the day

[triadruid]

So yesterday was the last day of my 3-day GIS training. Except it was really the last two-hours of my 3-day training, because the Air Conditioning was out. In the Health Department building. In 95° weather. So they let us do the exercises and leave, instead of sitting through the lectures. Luckily this part was something I mostly knew about already, so it went pretty quickly. One of the plus sides of my job is that a lot of what I do (databases, volunteers, mapping, website design) cross-trains very nicely with Gaia Community and other hobby activities. I've already got a bug in my ear about the carpooling thing that's been on my To-Do list for forever...

So an 8-hour training that I expected to be ~6 hours is done in 2, and I go take care of the other things on my task list, and head home about 1pm. Sounds great, right?

When I get home, kittenpants expresses how difficult it is to do dishes in the hall bathroom, and suggests that we have time to go pick up a new faucet for the kitchen, which destructed the other day. A brief moment of consultation with her father (the plumber engineer retired fluid systems engineer) on the best faucet to buy ensues, and we're off to Lowe's. This triggers a few amusing anecdotes, such as when the salesperson tells us that the model we like best is in fact on the shelf, it's just been *sold* to a different company than we were expecting to go with. And lo, there it is on the shelp, same faucet, same price, different branding.

We parade around the store a while longer, picking up some solar-cell lights for the sidewalk & driveway, when we realize that we didn't get any tools/aculk/etc for replacing a faucet. kittenpants threatens to use her best Face of Innocence™ and the "Hi-we're-a-newly-married-couple-with-a-home-repair-issue-and-no-clue-can-you-sell-us-something-at-wildly-inflated-prices?" line, which I'm certain would have broken the sales clerk. Instead we solve the problem while waiting in line to talk to said sales clerk, by the simple expedient of Opening the Package and Reading the Instructions (yes, I'm one of those guys).

What's a basin wrench? We soon discover the answer to that and all of our problems, and head home to do battle with the Sink-O-Doom. This proceeds smoothly until I have an epiphany about why plumbers charge such steep rates; sometime in the history of indoor plumbing, a demon infiltrated the plumber's guild masked in the guise of an ergonomics expert.

So I'm upside down, in the undersink cabinet, trying not to get lime scale deposits in my eyes, and maneuvering this 'basin wrench'into position, only to find that I've got no leverage while upside down and in a tight corner, with which to break the hard water deposits off of the Hot/Cold faucet connections. Hmmm. A brief foray into Google results in the magic phrase "penetrating oil". Will WD-40 work? Indeed it will, as it lists "Cleaning" and "Penetrating" among its skill set. Excellent.

Only it doesn't work. One of the faucets gets to the point where it will spin in the sink-hole mounting, but the other one is stuck fast, and there's not enough hammering or penetrating or screwing to satisfy anybody in this adventure, more's the pity. So at this point, it appears I need the leverage of at least one more adult male, and if that doesn't work, I'm getting the hacksaw, or possibly the Dremel. I only need the bottom half of it to survive, after all.

Temporarily defeated, I go to seek solace in the squishing of demons. By which I mean, Play Some Diablo II. More on that later...

Comments

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

If satisfaction is what you're after, then you're hammering and screwing and penetrating the wrong things.

Also, we've got the World's Largest Prybar™ in the garage, do you think that would help?

(I have no serious suggestions, I'm no help and I'm sorry.)

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

try giving niveus_tigris a call. He just did the same thing on the kitchen faucet at Haven, including corrosion issues.
But yes, penetrating oil is different from WD-40...

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Thanks, unfortunately we're buried in a GodA meeting tonight, but maybe tomorrow...he's got plenty on his brain right now, as it is.

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

GodA meeting

?

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

God Auction meeting last night...I figured "GA" would have been even more confusing, since biscuitgod just got back from Dallas.

See you tomorrow...*smooches*... can't wait!

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

WD-40 does good at loosening rust, but not limescale... you just put another vote in the pot for the water softener at our house though....

WD-40 is not the best penetrating oil, I like Skin So Soft myself, but that's a different story. There are actual penetration oils, but they tend to cost more than a tool for something you will never use again. I would go with the hacksaw, or use a glass vessel with cleaner that breaks up limescale. I forget the name, but there is some old cheap chemical that people used in my old rental that took the finish off the tub.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we've decided to resurrect the water softener in the house, although there's indications (brass & white ceramic fittings in a mostly stainless-steel kitchen) that this is the original sink & faucet from the house. That's only 12-15 years, granted, but that's a lot of limescale.

I'll take the advice under advisement about the penetrating oil/limescale remover. I knew WD-40 wasn't going to be ideal, but I was weighing it against another trip to the hardware store...

[leiandra.livejournal.com]

You're probably thinking about CLR (Calcium-Lime-Rust). That stuff is stout.