Plumbing Woes

This is a hole. Do you see the hole? Good. I was afraid I was hallucinating because last week when the plumber I was referred to by a friend came to fix this leak just off our water main, he didn't seem to notice it.

Well, I take that back. He noticed it enough to wrap teflon tape around the hole, but, evidently, didn't think the damaged pipe warranted replacement.

He was more concerned that it might rain later in the day and if he were to rip up my yard fixing the pipe I would be left with a big, undesireable mud hole . . . as opposed to a big, undesireable lack of running water in the house!

So it seems he didn't want to take the effort (beyond the five minutes it took to 1. unscrew the fitted cap thing from the threads, 2. wrap the hole with tape and 3. rescrew the fitted cap thing onto the threads) to actually fix the pipe. Though, since I paid $100 for his one-hour minimum service call, he was gracious enough to give me an unexpected 20-minute history lesson entitled "The Unknown Truth About Texicans, Davey Crockett and Andrew Jackson."

After a day or two, the pipe started to leak again (surprise, surprise). This time, however, I decided to go with the same franchised company I had to use when our water heater was spraying water everywhere early one Sunday morning and there wasn't time to ask around for a good referral.

And, much like they did with our water heater problem, this company's guys arrived quickly, gave a written estimate before the work was done, gave a six-month guarantee after the work was completed, stayed focused on plumbing and didn't get sidetracked with other educational subjects.

So much for trying to help support local Mom and Pop businesses. Here's to globalization!

P.S. In my defense, before you ask why I didn't make the first plumber fix it properly, I was busy cooking in the house when he was working (since it took a couple hours between my call and his arrival), so when I checked the hole (after the history lesson) and didn't see any leaks, all seemed well. Only when we went to Home Depot to try to get some stuff to fix it ourselves (don't ask), did my son see the teflon tape and tell us "that's the stuff the guy used on the pipe!" He has since been instructed that if he ever sees a repairman wrap tape around a hole again, he's to come inside and tell mommy!