May 3, 2007

he days usually go fairly smoothly around here... we do have the occasional bump in the road shall we say.. but nothing which usually cannot be handled in a moment or two. However, from time to time something goes amuck and this is one of those times. 

This all leads up to a bathroom sink. The bathroom sink in the picture in fact. It looks like any normal sink you would find in most bathrooms around North America and this one happens to be ours. But this ones tale started early yesterday morning. 

The backhoe arrived early in the morning yesterday to start digging the 7 foot deep ditch line for the new well to the new pumphouse and then on up to the cabin here. The ditch needs to be that deep due to our winter frost line. The guys were aware that they may come across the old line at any point and from the way the previous owners did things, it would not have been surprising to find it meandering all over the property before it finally arrived at the house. 

The guys looked and looked for it, and never came across it. When they arrived with the ditch at the water hydrant, they took one last swipe and hit the water line at 2 feet below the ground. And completely destroyed it. I was not home at the time, but the water was here, there and everywhere. They finally got the water line shut off when someone opened the old well, climbed down into it and shut it off at the pressure tank. 

Six hours later, last night,  we had water to everything (sorta), except for the bathroom sink. Why? We have no idea. My guy and his father decide that there must have been something which went into the line and got stuck in the section which went to the bathroom sink. 

This morning my "FIL" came over with his toolbox in hand and went to work on the bathroom sink. He went to pull the screen off the tap on the bathroom sink and due to its oldness and the amount of calcium buildup on it, the tap fractured and immediately died. The two men did a good job of cleaning the bathroom walls, ceiling and floor after they shlooshed it with large amounts of water. When I meandered that way, I did inquire if the ceiling was supposed to be that wet. The good news about the faucet breaking is I did not like the other one anyway. 

Thankfully we were given an old sink and toilet a few days ago from my guys brother and wife, which we gave to Mary (as she required a new toilet as hers broke in the winter with no heat in the house) and so after a quick call to Mary, we went to retrieve the sink to scam on the faucet and handles from it to replace our broken ones. So this sink has gone from the original house, to Mary's, to our house and soon the basin is heading t0 the Re-Use store for someone else to use all in a matter of 3 days. How is that for recycling?

After all that was fixed, we now have a slow water problem with the cold tap on the bathtub and no access to any of the plumbing to it. I am not complaining too bad, as we do have water to it. Only we have to plan an hour in advance to take a bath as we have no shower here.

Funny how sometimes some simple little straightforward project turns into a 2 day event.