Our master bath shower has been dripping for some time. It’s really become annoying because there’s no way to stop the drip and it’s close to our bedroom. When the house was quiet, the loud drip – drip – drip was enough to drive you crazy. (The only way not to hear it was to close the door, but when the bathroom door was closed it was hard to see your way to the bathroom without turning on a light.) John determined that the shower needed a new washer or something like that in the “handle” part of the shower, but we also wanted a new shower head (one of those disk types). We bought the shower head a couple of days ago in preparation. (The literature with the shower head said it would be a 15 minute job.)

So this morning, armed with determination and the new shower head, John started what we both felt would be a tiny job: the washer first and then the shower head install.

Unfortunately over the 24 years since it was installed, the handle action had frozed up and there was no way to replace the washer. In the process of cranking on it, a pipe broke, making it necessary to replace the whole handle assembly.

And since the shower didn’t have a shut-off of its own, all the water in the house was shut off for the duration of the project.

A hole had to be cut through the wall of the front hall closet (which shares a wall with the shower) so we could work on the problem.

John drove to Home Depot and got the parts he needed.

He had to weld the parts with a welding torch. The fire alarm kept going off because the torch would put out sooty smoke. It was therefore a very loud, dirty job. The oily soot got all over everything. (I’ll be cleaning it up for a long while.)

But we were making head-way when the acetalene ran out. The only supplier was about 15 miles away (30 round-trip). John had already over-done it, so I insisted on going after the stuff and he stayed home to rest.

When I got back, he looked a little better and we completed the job. It took from about 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

Never say something is a “tiny” project.