Attempting to flood the basement.

I had a leak in a pipe in the basement so I decided to try making a quick repair using Aquapex. It’s a temporary fix, so I figure I could experiment. Fortunately, I didn’t hurt myself too much and the pipes only leak a little (stupid old pipe).

The Aquapex was incredibly easy to work with. The only problems I had were getting the old pipe out and cutting the Aquapex too short because I am not a real plumber. In fact, I cut it too short twice. I’ve done a lot of plumbing around the house and I know why plumbers get paid so much (because they’re worth it) but I’m too stupid to not try to fix things myself. It’s kind of fun and probably costs me more in the long run (don’t ask me how I ended up with seven pipe wrenches.) I suppose the whole buying tools thing also is a way to show off my manliness. SEVEN PIPE WRENCHES LADIES! That’s what I should have had on match.com.

What is up with shipping nowadays?

So I thought I ordered some L.L. Bean shirts last night. I wasn’t expecting them for a while and I wasn’t worried because I don’t wear button-down shirts very often except to go to work. But guess what? They arrived tonight! Weird, huh? One of them is a very lame Xmas present for my dad. (Don’t worry, lameness of the gifts mean that everyone already knows what they’re getting except maybe my brother-in-law and I don’t think he reads my blog anyway.) I also got my expensive ebay plumbing tool that I ordered on Monday! Whee!

Well, the plumbing tool just means more work for me. It’s semi-likely that I’ll just flood the basement and have to call a real plumber. I know you’re supposed to let the professionals do their job, but there’s a macho quality of screwing up, I mean, “Doing it yourself.” I just hope none of it involves a hammer, because I always end up hitting my thumb. In any case, I’m going to experiment on a small section of plumbing before I do anything else.

It’s Friday night and I spent all night on the internets using the google, trying to figure out if there’s any credence to the story that PEX releases MTBE into water. So far, I’ve found a couple references that say that some do more than others. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. There are a lot of plumbers who hate PEX, but I’m going to give it a try.