DEE DEE DEE
Today started off well enough. Got up before God did, played with the kids, but was running a bit of a fever, so I skipped breakfast. (I've had a fever off and on for the last few days - Im so damn DONE with being sick - I swear! --- And no, it's not a sympton of what my wife has).
I bought pvc pipe at the Bob the Builder store, so that the water leaving the washing machine (which I relocatd to our garage), would hook up with the main sewage line. Up until now, when we wash clothes, the back yard gets flooded. So Im out in the back yard, thinking that Im doing good: fixing the house - keeping the older boy busy and letting him help . All in the interest of not flooding the backyard anymore. Well, I didin't feel like cutting the last piece of pvc pipe, so I just pulled the OUT hose from the washer over to the connector. And in doing so (it was only 6 inches), I disconnected the hose from the bottom of the washer. SO, I flooded the INSIDE of the damn garage. Luckily, we had TONS of towels to be washed, all sitting around the washer on the floor, so the msasive flood was pretty well contained.
DUMB THOUGHT #1 : All this work to not flood the yard, and I flood the damn garage instead.
A few times (over the past years) , the part that controls the water intake (on the rear of the washer) has gone bad. It's a $30-40 part, but you can easily canibalize one from anyother washer, and hook it up. They all have the same wiring. SO our washer, I should saw, was in sad shape. I had to take off the back cover to get to the part the last times I replaced it, and I never did get it all back together the right way. During the spin cycle, even the dog ran and hid. BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM .
So, I decided that today was a good day to FIX the washer. (After Aikiso class. ) That meant removing it from the BACK of the garage, and laying it down in the yard, so I could better align the chasis. This meant 30 minutes of moving shit out of the garage, that was in the way of the washer's exit.
I finally get the washer out, I find the drill, drill bits, and new screws. When Im done, I think to myself, "This bitch is gonna be rebuilt tougher than my truck!" The boy comes over to say that he's hungy. Indeed it is lunch time. The wife comes out with the baby, and I decide to put the washer on hold while I get food for the family. Actually, for the boys. For some reason, Im not hungry (A DEFINITE sign that Im sick), but I know the boys need to get out for a while, so we (the boys and I) head off to Chickfila. I only eat half my food, so I brought the remaining half home for the wife.
We get home, and Logan and I head out to finish fixing the washer. VRVRVRTTT VRVRVRTT VRRRRRRRTT - 3 pilot holes on the bottom left - and 3 big ass screws to hold the bottom to the body. Tha's when IT happened. Friggin rain. I grabbed a tarp, and covered the washer, the boy, the dog AND myself. BUt I wasn't going to try using power tools in the rain - exspecially since the tarp was so old that it leaked. The boy thought it was a blast! I ran out in the now torenchal downpour, grabbed a shovel, and planted it in the middle of our make shift tent. It held the roof higher than my arms did. He thought it was like camping. We waited for the rain to stop - then waited for the rain to let up a little - then were finished waiting. We all made a bolt for the back door, and came inside. Even the dog ran in, who is strictly an outside dog. The boy and I brushed her down, and toweled her off a bit, then gave her a bone, and sent her back to the garage.
DUMB THOUGHT #2: ALL that damn moving, to not flood the backyard, and the WEATHER floods it for me!!
After a short time in the family, I needed to get away for a while, and knew where a leaky ass home made tent could be found. I hid in my fortress of solitude (kinda, the boy kept yelling at me from 10 ft away, out the bathroom window). But, I fixed the washer, and in the pouring rain, dolly's the sombitch back in the garage. In a failed attempt to re-hook-up the "water out" hose to the washer, the fucke rbit me and gashed open my hand (between my thumb and my pointer finger).
DUMB THOUGHT #3 : SHIT!
Cold water, antimicrobial soap, neosporin, and 3 bandaids later, (and a few well deserved WACKS being delivered to my foe), I finally got the washer "fixed". When it spins, you can barely hear it. It is solid, and balanced, and when it spits out water, it travels outside, down the pipe, and into the sewer. I had to wash 3 loads of clothes - all of which helped soak up the earlier flood.
Tomorrow, if it don't rain , i'll have to secure the drainage pipes TO the garage. Right now, they are propped up with anything I could find. But, if they fall overnight, the worst that could happen is that the backyard gets flooded - which it already is - which, compared to all my hard work and booboos, hardly seems like it could be an issue at all.
Night all
I bought pvc pipe at the Bob the Builder store, so that the water leaving the washing machine (which I relocatd to our garage), would hook up with the main sewage line. Up until now, when we wash clothes, the back yard gets flooded. So Im out in the back yard, thinking that Im doing good: fixing the house - keeping the older boy busy and letting him help . All in the interest of not flooding the backyard anymore. Well, I didin't feel like cutting the last piece of pvc pipe, so I just pulled the OUT hose from the washer over to the connector. And in doing so (it was only 6 inches), I disconnected the hose from the bottom of the washer. SO, I flooded the INSIDE of the damn garage. Luckily, we had TONS of towels to be washed, all sitting around the washer on the floor, so the msasive flood was pretty well contained.
DUMB THOUGHT #1 : All this work to not flood the yard, and I flood the damn garage instead.
A few times (over the past years) , the part that controls the water intake (on the rear of the washer) has gone bad. It's a $30-40 part, but you can easily canibalize one from anyother washer, and hook it up. They all have the same wiring. SO our washer, I should saw, was in sad shape. I had to take off the back cover to get to the part the last times I replaced it, and I never did get it all back together the right way. During the spin cycle, even the dog ran and hid. BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM .
So, I decided that today was a good day to FIX the washer. (After Aikiso class. ) That meant removing it from the BACK of the garage, and laying it down in the yard, so I could better align the chasis. This meant 30 minutes of moving shit out of the garage, that was in the way of the washer's exit.
I finally get the washer out, I find the drill, drill bits, and new screws. When Im done, I think to myself, "This bitch is gonna be rebuilt tougher than my truck!" The boy comes over to say that he's hungy. Indeed it is lunch time. The wife comes out with the baby, and I decide to put the washer on hold while I get food for the family. Actually, for the boys. For some reason, Im not hungry (A DEFINITE sign that Im sick), but I know the boys need to get out for a while, so we (the boys and I) head off to Chickfila. I only eat half my food, so I brought the remaining half home for the wife.
We get home, and Logan and I head out to finish fixing the washer. VRVRVRTTT VRVRVRTT VRRRRRRRTT - 3 pilot holes on the bottom left - and 3 big ass screws to hold the bottom to the body. Tha's when IT happened. Friggin rain. I grabbed a tarp, and covered the washer, the boy, the dog AND myself. BUt I wasn't going to try using power tools in the rain - exspecially since the tarp was so old that it leaked. The boy thought it was a blast! I ran out in the now torenchal downpour, grabbed a shovel, and planted it in the middle of our make shift tent. It held the roof higher than my arms did. He thought it was like camping. We waited for the rain to stop - then waited for the rain to let up a little - then were finished waiting. We all made a bolt for the back door, and came inside. Even the dog ran in, who is strictly an outside dog. The boy and I brushed her down, and toweled her off a bit, then gave her a bone, and sent her back to the garage.
DUMB THOUGHT #2: ALL that damn moving, to not flood the backyard, and the WEATHER floods it for me!!
After a short time in the family, I needed to get away for a while, and knew where a leaky ass home made tent could be found. I hid in my fortress of solitude (kinda, the boy kept yelling at me from 10 ft away, out the bathroom window). But, I fixed the washer, and in the pouring rain, dolly's the sombitch back in the garage. In a failed attempt to re-hook-up the "water out" hose to the washer, the fucke rbit me and gashed open my hand (between my thumb and my pointer finger).
DUMB THOUGHT #3 : SHIT!
Cold water, antimicrobial soap, neosporin, and 3 bandaids later, (and a few well deserved WACKS being delivered to my foe), I finally got the washer "fixed". When it spins, you can barely hear it. It is solid, and balanced, and when it spits out water, it travels outside, down the pipe, and into the sewer. I had to wash 3 loads of clothes - all of which helped soak up the earlier flood.
Tomorrow, if it don't rain , i'll have to secure the drainage pipes TO the garage. Right now, they are propped up with anything I could find. But, if they fall overnight, the worst that could happen is that the backyard gets flooded - which it already is - which, compared to all my hard work and booboos, hardly seems like it could be an issue at all.
Night all
posted by Darth Daddy @ 4/08/2006 11:00:00 PM
3 Comments:
At 4:10 PM,
Anonymous said…
our washer used to be in the basement and emptied into a utility sink, which unfortunately sometimes got clogged and so water all over. Now we finally have an upstairs laundry that has outflow that goes directly into the house's plumbing. It is great, but I still have these fears that something will clog and we'll have water overflows. Fortunately this is a front loader that only has one gallon at a time.
Glad you got yours to work. Things like that make you realize that sometimes it's worth paying a plumber to do the job... (full disclosure: our plumber did all of the hookups and plumbing for the laundry room)
At 8:11 PM,
Kim said…
Have you ever noticed how when you try to fix something yourself that seems fairly simple, all hell usually breaks loose? There is no such thing as a simple repair because you always get thrown about 4 curveballs right off the bat. I'm not very handy, but there are certainly some things I can do....I always tell my wife that it's no big deal and it should take about 25 minutes, then the next thing I know I have created more problems than existed in the first place, and I have spent 6 hours on a 25 minute project. By the way, Lance does have a resemblence to my little Carson. I checked out Flickr.
At 4:26 AM,
Idaho Dad said…
Any project around the house... I always start off thinking "I'm gonna do that myself!" and then I get to some stage of the project (usually pre-planning) and realize, "Oops, I can't do that myself."
When I do actually tackle and entire repair or construction project, it feels pretty good to get it done right. But I'm sure I spent way too much doing it.
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