Plumbing 101

When they moved in, part of the deal was that I would teach The Roommates how to take care of a house while they helped take care of Dad. Even though Dad moved to the nursing home a couple weeks before they were scheduled to move in, we still went ahead with the plan. Today was our first foray in to the world of plumbing! When I went to the Big Island the kitchen faucet had a slow drip; it had gotten faster while I was away. Today, with help from Luna & Keala, they changed out the old faucet and put in a new one that they had selected. It took them a little over an hour to do that.

The leaky old faucet.

The new faucet.

The shut off valves.

The Potential Most Favorite Roommate starts to take things apart.

This is one of the connections to the faucet.

The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes prepares to remove the old sprayer.

Now he removes the faucet assembly.

The Potential Most Favorite Roommate cleans up the sink before installing the new faucet.

The new faucet in place.

The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes reads the instructions for installing the sprayer.

The Roommates were really proud of doing this themselves.

The old parts.

The Potential Most Favorite Roommate was feeling good; he decided he also wanted to change out the old sink in the half bathroom and install the new vanity & sink that they had bought. That one took a little longer. It included a trip to City Mill because the salesman told them the faucet was included with the vanity, and they believed him because of the language on the box, "brushed nickel finish hardware". The "hardware" was actually the pulls for the cabinet doors. None of them picked up on the "pre-drilled for 4-in centerset faucets" note. Because why would they need to tell you about that if they had included the faucet that would fit the pre-drilled holes in the cultured marble top?

Turning off the incoming water.

Loosening the p-trap.

Removing the p-trap.

Watching the You Tube video to make sure he's got it right.

Removing the sink.

The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes takes the sink out of the house.

He tweaked his wrist when he was setting it down. (He's OK now.)

Fifty years of accumulation.

Removing the new sink & vanity from the car.

Unboxing the new sink & vanity.

The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes checks the instructions for the next step. What? No faucet?

Checking the fit.

It turns out the lack of fixtures wasn't the only hurdle in installing the new vanity & sink. As they were turning off the water to the old faucet the hot water valve had a small problem; it was turned off as tight as possible but still had a slow drip that turned out to be from the valve itself. So they bought 2 new valves to replace the 50-year old valves. In order to replace them we needed to turn off the incoming water to the entire house. They were able to turn off most of the water, then I remembered that we had that same problem when we had changed out the toilet in this half bathroom in December 2017. I was supposed to have called a plumber after we finished replacing the flooring in the house to have that main valve replaced; but I forgot. This time The Potential Most Favorite Roommate called his friend's father who is a plumber; he'll be over tomorrow to see what the problem is.

Opening up the box to the valve for the incoming water.

Luna & Keala helped in their own kitty ways; S'mores stayed way out of the way. Luna chose to supervise up close and personal; Keala was more interested in the tools. They both liked inspecting the box the new vanity & sink came in.

Luna supervises the faucet installation.

Keala oversees the tools.

Luna supervises the removal of the old sink.

Keala watched the tools again.

Luna makes sure The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes is doing his job.

Checking out the box.

What's that?

Luna tries to ambush Keala.

I am keeping up with the earlier wake up time. But I am going back to sleep, then getting out of bed closer to 6 am like I was while on Hawaiʻi Island.

Thirty-two minutes before sunrise.

Waking up four minutes before sunrise.

I finally finished off the 1st roll of toilet paper that The Potential Most Favorite Roommate was given as a parting gift when his former employer closed. I had installed it in mid-April, 2 months ago; because I was gone for 4 weeks, it actually took me about 5 weeks to use that roll. We still have 10 more rolls left.

These rolls have no cardboard tube to be disposed of.

The Roommates like to make sure there is a lot of toilet paper & paper towels on hand.

Today at lunch I tried the Parmesan Crisps that The Roommates picked up for me when they were unable to find the Parm Crisps tub that I usually get. I like the Parm Crisps in the tub because they are about 3" in diameter so are much more cracker-like and easier to apply peanut butter. These Parmesan Crisps were slightly larger than a quarter; I only put a small dab of peanut butter on each one of the 20 I ate as my 100 calorie snack at lunch. (It has 0 carbs because it is all cheese.) FYI There are a lot of different types of cheese-based "crackers"; I have tried 4 of them and like the Parm Crisps in the tub best because of how much peanut butter they can carry.





After all the plumbing work, The Roommates also cooked dinner. The Potential Most Favorite Roommate made Keto Fried Chicken and The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes made Air Fryer Brussels Sprouts. Learning how to cook was one of the other lessons on taking care of a house. Because our schedules were so variable prior to COVID-19, although we tried to each cook once a week it didn't work out well so we dropped it. The thing that pushed them to cooking more was that they discovered it was really expensive to eat out most of the time. They started out with ready-to-cook meals; they liked the convenience. Since COVID-19 our schedules are more compatible so we now do more home cooking. Hulō for COVID-19?

Because of the spike in new cases, there has been a call for MRC volunteers to provide support services to those who are in at-home isolation on O'ahu. I got an email today asking volunteers to enter their availability to assist between now & the end of the month on a spreadsheet. I entered my info starting on the 26th when I get out of quarantine!

Today there were 14 new COVID-19 cases bringing the total known cases up to 803; number of deaths and hospitalizations have remained the same. Seven of the new cases were on Kaua'i in the same household that had tested positive yesterday. Politico has a great story on How Hawaii Became a Rare Covid Success Story. I just noticed today that the Age graph has not been updated since Monday; I will be checking if they are now only updating on Mondays, if so I will only show a new Age graph on Mondays.

This week's summary.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Tristen!