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Wednesday, November 2

Do It Yourself versus Do It For Me

I learned a good lesson yesterday about needing to know my limitations.  I am so stubborn sometimes that I take on repair jobs that are bigger than I can handle.  I guess knowing what those limitations are is my problem.

My new tenant called a few days ago to let me know the shower faucet had a slow leak.  I figured I would try to tackle it myself and save the $100 or so a plumber would charge.  I spent a couple of hours on Youtube and other handyman websites watching people repair these things.  I felt confident that I could tackle the job.

The first problem was that once I disassembled the obvious parts and got down to the guts of the shower, I didn't recognize a thing.  I thought I would try to unscrew the valve and take it with me to find a replacement since replacing the "seats and springs" and steel ball didn't stop the leak.  Unfortunately, in trying to unscrew the valve, I made the leak worse.  In fact, I broke one of the pipes in the faucet, sending water through the floor behind the tub, penetrating through the sheetrock ceiling and down to a utility closet on the ground floor.

Now, $653 later, what started off as a small leak has been repaired.  Assuming my $100 estimate is close, my attempt to fix this myself cost me more than $500.

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