SWEATIN' WITH THE OLDIES

Home in Port Charlotte

70 at wakeup, going to 88 today

.

When Kathy told me we had a leaky faucet at one of the outside hose bib connections I figured a new rubber washer would do the trick. Oh how wrong I was. When your house is 27 years old things have a tendency to wear out and if you're going to fix something you're better off replacing that little something. Unfortunately our hose bibs are soldered on.

.

I went to Home Depot and met with the same guy who had sold us the kitchen appliances just after we closed on this house 18 months ago. He asked me if I had a propane torch and when I said I did he was very convincing in telling me I could do this. So much so, I bought materials to replace BOTH outside hose bib connections.

.

Back home I knew enough to turn the water off at the main but after 30 minutes of trying to heat up the copper and the brass, the old faucet wouldn't budge. I called one of the irrigation managers from our company. I recalled working with him in Phoenix and remembered he used to call this task "sweatin' pipe." "Well Josh," I told him, "the only thing sweatin' is me!" He asked if the pipe was still dripping water and when I confirmed that he said that as long there's water in that pipe you will never break the seal from the old solder. He taught me an old plumber's trick of stuffing bread into the pipe to stop the flow of the residual water. I went out to try it but realized the real problem was that even though I had turned off the main, with the slow dripping of the problem pipe, I had failed to open the valve and actually bleed off the remaining water from the system.

.

As soon as I did this, after a pint or so of water came out, applying the torch to the pipe heated it up immediately and I saw the old solder come spilling out of the connection where the brass meets the copper. The old faucet popped right off in 2 minutes. Using Josh's advice I made sure to sand down the copper nice and clean, inside and out. I learned this work uses a product called Flux, as a sort of primer for the solder. Josh said, if you don't get enough Flux on there it won't seal. You can't use too much. After fluxing both the copper and the new brass fixture, put the new faucet on and solder it in place, all around the connection. You will see, when you heat it up, the solder will get sucked inside the connection, creating a nice seal.

.

The first one went so well, we replaced the second bib on the opposite side of the house, in no time. Kathy said, "See honey, you are my handy man! You just needed a old house to work on."

.

Today, Saturday, I am launching the boat at 11:00 AM. Rolando and I are going fishing. I hadn't taken the boat out since September 19 and was worried about the batteries. I dropped her in the water and she fired right up. I ran the motor for 10 minutes in the canal and then did a 10 minute fresh water flush to clean her out. We have a nice return window from 5PM to 7PM. When we get back, both of our Kathys will have steak and Key Largo lobster tails waiting for us. Hopefully I will have some fish pictures to share on here tomorrow.