The Plumber

I hate every plumber I've ever met. That's only like two, and one I only spoke to on the phone, but still.

Intrepid readers will remember that soon after we moved into our house, we had some interesting water issues. You might remember a struggle in the middle of the night when the hot water of the shower wouldn't turn off, and the handle was completely loose in its socket. I unscrewed the handle, and when it got loose, it shot out of the wall and hot water went spraying into the shower from where the handle used to be.

So, we contacted two plumbers. One of them wanted to sell me a $30 part for something like $100 and also, of course, get paid to installed it. The second plumber actually wanted to tear down the entire wall to replace the innards of the shower simply because he didn't have the right valve. In other words, imagine that you have a lightbulb that burned out. Normally, you'd unscrew the old one, and screw in the new one. And if you didn't have a new one that fit that socket, you'd go and buy it and then screw it in. This guy wanted to tear down the entire wall to replace the socket. I finally was able to coax out of him that all I really needed to do was find a replacement valve and I could probably replace it myself.

Fast forward to recent times, with the showerhead that broke off. We called the plumbers again (through our home insurance policy provided by the seller), and they sent out the same guy who wanted to tear down the wall. I opened the door, and said (in a very Jeff Spicoli type of way) "Heyyyy... I know you!". He remembered me, too, and made some crack about seeing if he can fix things without tearing down the wall or something. Anyways, he was able to remove the piece of pipe stuck in the socket, and install the new shower pipe (that we provided) and head. I noticed that he coated the threads of the pipe with some thick gray stuff which probably means that pipe is now permanently bonded in there. Or maybe it's just water tight goo.

Anyways, I was pleased with the job that he did, and he seemed pleased to be able to help. I mentioned to him that I was able to find a valve for the shower, and replace it myself. He gave a look of (I'm guessing feigned) mild shock, and didn't ask much more about it.

I asked him about the water hammer (the clunking in the pipes when the water is turned off suddenly). He didn't seem to know much about it (he's not, shall we say, outspoken), but thought it might be air trapped in the pipes. He suggested I turn on all the water in the house and that the air might work its way out. This sort of directly contradicts the cause (and solution, actually) that I read online, which is that there ISN'T any air in the pipes, and to drain the whole house of water to basically create a bubble in the hammer arrestor. I think we'll just be gentle with the handles for now.

*sigh*