Plumbing Part Three

“That will be a simple little job.”

Famous last words…

What should have been a simple enough job was the fitting of a hand basin in the toilet. Straightforward indeed; connect the waste pipe into the existing waste pipe running down behind the toilet and take a cold water inlet from the cistern inlet. Simple.

Except…

The basin came with a mixer tap – so it needed both hot and cold inlets. Okay, plan B. I could drill into the bathroom next door and run from the basin inlets there. I worked out the shortest pipe run and measured everything up. I fitted the hand basin and ran the waste pipe down to the old one half plastered into the wall. It was when I cut out the old one that I realised that while everywhere else in the house had 32mm pipes, this one was 40mm. My careful measurements were upset by the pipe being half buried in plaster. A quick trip to Lodève to get the necessary fittings and adaptors was complicated by an accident earlier in the day on the A75. In order to avoid this I took the old road which while more interesting, takes longer.

The waste pipe completed, I set about drilling the holes for the water inlets. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fit the drill into the planned gap. Never mind, plan C. I simply drilled further along the wall. However, this meant another two elbow joints, which meant another trip into Lodève. With everything soldered up, I was ready to cut the water pipes and disconnect the taps in the bathroom hand basin. The hot tap came off easily enough. I couldn’t get the cold tap off completely, so I left it in situ while I fitted flexi pipes onto my T junctions. Excellent. Time to switch on the water. A face full of water later, I switched it off again. I tried tightening the cold tap, but it was tight. Suspecting the washer was at fault, I took the joint off and sure enough, it needed a new washer, which meant another trip to Lodève.

A new washer failed to seal the joint. I couldn’t get the tap off because the nylon nut seized tight at the same point as the pipe joint. The thread was clearly damaged. So new taps were in order. As it was now eight o’clock in the evening, we had to manage with the water turned off until the following day.

The local bricolage didn’t have the old style taps, so I had to buy modern mixer taps. Okay, no problem, plan D.

Why is is that when I attempt simple plumbing jobs, they are anything but simple and I always seem to uncover gremlins left by the previous occupants?

Having finally sorted the problem, we now have a hand basin in the toilet and the bathroom and they both work without any leaks. I decided it was time to indulge in a bit of photography – and came across this chap climbing the steps to the house.