Further adventures with water and pipes
Jul. 1st, 2009 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceI told you I wanted to do more plumbing...
In my yesterday's adventures, trying to clean out the U-tube without actually being able to remove it, I did among other things try to blast it clean with a jet from the garden hose. This was actually how I discovered just how clogged it was, by virtue of the backblast; sadly, the operation had no observable effect. Until this morning.
I had, alas, neglected to turn off the garden tap. Which meant that sometime in the night, the water-pressure was enough to blast the hose from its fitting, so that the tap was gushing out into the back yard for some unknown period of time. I heard its noise, while breakfasting the cats; and deduced the cause, and sighed, and went outside -
- and found the backyard inches deep in water. Which meant that the lower drain was blocked; which meant that I had to fetch my improvised hook-out-the-yard-draincover tool (actually a butcher's hook, which works extremely well), find the drain under all that chilly water, hook out the cover, plunge my arm elbow-deep inside to find the blockage...
Well. You get the picture. Just the thing, first thing in the morning.
At least the operation ends with a deeply satisfactory gurgle-and-rush as all the water is swallowed down. I liked that.
And then, while I was in town in pursuit of quota, I paused in the market and bought a cheap plumbing tool; and came home and applied tool to obstinate nuttery, and took off the U-tube.
Eww. Clay-like gunk of a most distinctive odour, half-blocking inlet and outlet and the sidelet too, where the washing-machine comes in.
So. All has been cleaned and scrubbed and reassembled, the washing-machine is on a maintenance cycle and I kind of wish that I was too, but there is work to be doing, for I am made of virtue. I stick in my thumb and pull out a plumb. I'm that good.
In my yesterday's adventures, trying to clean out the U-tube without actually being able to remove it, I did among other things try to blast it clean with a jet from the garden hose. This was actually how I discovered just how clogged it was, by virtue of the backblast; sadly, the operation had no observable effect. Until this morning.
I had, alas, neglected to turn off the garden tap. Which meant that sometime in the night, the water-pressure was enough to blast the hose from its fitting, so that the tap was gushing out into the back yard for some unknown period of time. I heard its noise, while breakfasting the cats; and deduced the cause, and sighed, and went outside -
- and found the backyard inches deep in water. Which meant that the lower drain was blocked; which meant that I had to fetch my improvised hook-out-the-yard-draincover tool (actually a butcher's hook, which works extremely well), find the drain under all that chilly water, hook out the cover, plunge my arm elbow-deep inside to find the blockage...
Well. You get the picture. Just the thing, first thing in the morning.
At least the operation ends with a deeply satisfactory gurgle-and-rush as all the water is swallowed down. I liked that.
And then, while I was in town in pursuit of quota, I paused in the market and bought a cheap plumbing tool; and came home and applied tool to obstinate nuttery, and took off the U-tube.
Eww. Clay-like gunk of a most distinctive odour, half-blocking inlet and outlet and the sidelet too, where the washing-machine comes in.
So. All has been cleaned and scrubbed and reassembled, the washing-machine is on a maintenance cycle and I kind of wish that I was too, but there is work to be doing, for I am made of virtue. I stick in my thumb and pull out a plumb. I'm that good.