I had a leaky faucet in my bathtub, which wouldn't be all that bad, except that it kept getting worse, and it was the hot water faucet, so it was costing me money (not much, but talk about watching your money go down the drain...).

So the landlord hired a guy to come out and try to fix it. He started by shutting off the water for the house, then proceeded to tear into the fixture from the front. He removed the handle, and tried to remove the valve with the large "socket-wrench"-style tool (it almost looked like a spark plug removal wrench). The tool was so cheap and poorly made that it actually bent the tool, and left the valve unmoved. He had to run to the store to pick up another tool. Because he came to do the work while I was on my lunch hour, he had to reschedule his next visit for a few days later.

The next time he showed up, he shut of the house's water again, and immediately tried to remove the valve with his new tool. This one was also cheaply made (I sensed a pattern here), and deformed when he tried to pull the valve out. He managed to get it loosened before the tool gave out, and removed the valve. He compared it to the replacement part he had brought, and realized that my fixture was much older, and a different design. He said that he'd have to make another trip to the store to find the correct valve, and would have to come back another day. He replaced the valve, and went outside to turn the water back on. Because it was my lunch hour (again), and I was running late, I followed him outside and after he turned on the water again, made a quick appointment for him to come back and left.

Well, I had to run some errands on the way home that evening, so I arrived home a few hours later than normal. When I opened the front door I heard running water. Loud, running water. And it was not landing in an empty place, either. I ran into the bathroom and nearly killed myself slipping on the floor. There was water filling the tub, spilling out onto the floor, and flooding the bathroom. I turned off the water quickly and appraised the situation.

When the plumber had replaced the valve, he didn't bother checking to see if it was shut, or wide open. When he turned the house's water back on, I wasn't inside to hear the water coming out, full power. (Keep in mind this  is an old valve, made before "low-flow" was even a concept, let alone a requirement.) The water was so strong that it pulled down the rag that was hanging from the faucet (to decrease the volume of the dripping/leaking water) and shot in into the bottom the tub, right onto the drain. The tub had filled up, and the overflow valve didn't work (at least, not quickly enough compared to the Biblical flood coming from the faucet. The water went to the next lowest place, which was the floor. I checked in the hallway, and sure enough the water had seeped into the carpeting, soaking several square feet of carpeting, padding, sub-floor, and baseboarding.

It took me over an hour's work, with over a dozen towels, to finally clean up the floor. It was another few hours work with a hair dryer and fans to dry out the hallway. The linoleum has since started to peel up at the edges, and I can only imagine the damage done to the sub-flooring.

All of that, and when it was all said and done, he had to replace the entire fixture with a new one (because nobody made parts for the old fixture), replace half of the plumbing (because whoever installed the original pipes was either an authentic wacko or a certified genius), and tear out half the drywall between the tub and toilet. All for a single stripped-out O-ring.

Oh yea, and a lesson I've learned the hard way:

Don't start plumbing repairs an hour before the plumbing supply store closes......

One of my worst was when I running a multi-unit building in SF.  These places are live/work with shared bathrooms so any plumbing problem is a major headache.  Anyway, the way toilets are made, they narrow just a bit at the very bottom past the trap, and some person discovered a very common household item that apparently is small enough to make it through the trap and get stuck right at the spot where the toilet mounts to the floor.  So now I've got a toilet that it totally blocked, and of course since it's a semi public toilet, people kept using it even though it wouldn't flush.

The solution was to unmount the toilet, carry it to a sink and pour out everything in the bowl, then push the clog back out through the bowl.  Ugh.

Do not bring up plumbing~repairing hot water heater as we speak...grumble..grumble...mother never taught me how to use tools...hate plumbing!

just got home from vacation and the hot water heater had busted a line somewhere and flooded the kitchen (never put laminate wood flooring in your kitchen!!). The master bath and the kids playroom. you say not that big of a deal. Well this is the 4th flood in a little over a year. I think we are being sent a message. maybe to build the ark. The first flood was the worst. we were out of our home for a month because state farm was not really caring about what the contracted people were doing. they had someone fix the hot water heater, the walls that were wet, replace a cabinet, paint the walls (got paint on curtains and towels in house), put back baseboards, etc. they took their time, of course had to wait for ordered flooring to come in. and all this time living with someone else (our family of 7).   Finally got back in house and had a hole in wall they did and didn't fix, baseboards were installed wrong, etc. etc. (let me say horror story). a week later we discovered the hot water heater was leaking AGAIN!! they had not crossthreaded the connection and they didn't check their work.  flood #2!!!    3 months later a pipe under the sink broke and flooded the kitchen again (FLOOD #3) had to rip up floors again and this time the hall carpet. And that leads us to today, our 4th FLOOD!!!  No one I know has had this many floods in their lifetime and us - 4 in a year!! We now do all our own repairs so we know the work is done right and how we would want it, it may take a little longer but it is done better!!!

In a drain system, water flows downhill.  Whether it's a sink emptying or water in the pipes draining into the street main it's all a downhill kinda thing.  So when you tamper with the grade (angle of decent for the pipes) you alter the ability of your drains to get rid of water.  We had just moved into a rental house with the landlord living in Las Vegas.     Three days after moving in was Thanksgiving Day and we expected relatives from all over California to share a Thanksgiving Dinner in our new abode.  Some had driven over six hours to be there with us so when all the drains in the house stopped abruptly, I HAD to do something about it.

 

I crawled under the house armed with a flashlight and a couple of pipe wrenches and while our guests enjoyed dinner, I proceeded to un-bolt pipes to get to the root of the problem (and get an unexpected bath with household wastewater) .   After about an hour and a half, I finally determined the problem...  Unknown to me,  the previous occupant of our house had done some "plumbing refurbishment" leaving all of the sub-floor pipes off-kilter with less than 3/4 inch difference between the line running from the house to the street .Thus, water wouldn't move beyond the pipes.   Since it was Thanksgiving, I knew full well there was no plumbing supply store open so I had to do some creative plumbing to get things back in order.  I finally finished  just as everyone was leaving, I crawled out from under the house: wet, cold, tired and very hungry just in time to say goodbye.  Our family and guests had a wonderful time visiting with my wife and kids and I got to work .

 

After a long, hot shower I got to have my Thanksgiving dinner.    COLD.

Our judges picked Curt's tale of Thanksgiving woe as the best plumbing nightmare. Congrats Curt!