Man, I have been so “driftwoody” the last couple of days. I don’t know if it’s because of the holidaze or because I’m coming down with some kind of head cold, but I have really been having a hard time getting motivated to do, well anything.

Mornings are the worst, of course. It should be pretty obvious to anyone who has read many of these journal entries that I do most of my productive work in the late evenings anyway, but it’s been harder than usual, lately, to get going in the a.m.

It’s not for lack of work to be done, either. There’s still a lot of stuff that needs to be done around the house. There’s still about 3-4 square feet of wood floor that needs to be glued down and the pantry closet hasn’t had the original carpet removed and replaced with wood.

A water story

Despite my vegetable-ness, I did get the water line run for the ice maker in the kitchen. This was a project I had been dreading, somewhat, for weeks, because I wasn’t sure exactly what parts I needed to get to do it and I was a little nervous in general.

When I ran the water line for our ice maker in Hyrum, I purchased a common saddle valve which punctured the copper pipe and connected to tubing going up to the ice maker. It worked, but we were having problems with some of the ice coming out hollow- like there wasn’t enough water in the tray.

Christine had an appliance technician come out and check out the fridge and he said the saddle valve I installed just wasn’t delivering the kind of pressure needed for the ice maker. He replaced it with one that worked much better and our ice was solid from then on.

If installing the ice maker line was as easy as installing a saddle valve (one providing sufficient pressure, of course), I really wouldn’t have been that nervous about it. But it made sense to do a few other plumbing tasks while connecting the ice maker line and that made the project as a whole more complicated.

The idiot(s) who lived in the house before us did some weird stuff with the plumbing (among other things). They had a swamp cooler on the roof and installed a saddle valve in the basement for the water line going to the swamp cooler. That’s not so weird. But they installed it on the copper flexible pipe going into the water heater and ended up crushing the pipe a little. The result was a saddle valve that leaked (sprayed) water if you touched it or looked at it the wrong way. The ongoing water leaks left a lot of corrosion and hard water build-up on the pipes on the top of the water heater.

To repair this stuff and install the ice maker line, I chose to remove the flexible pipe going into the water heater and replace it with a copper tee going into a new flexible pipe. The tee would go to a ball valve which would go to the copper tubing going up to the kitchen.

A couple days ago, I went to Lowes and purchased the copper tubing, the 3/4"-1/2"-3/4" tee, a small tubing cutter, and the ball valve. I also needed a couple short pieces of 1/2" and 3/4" copper pipe, but I couldn’t find any small pieces at Lowes — only 10-foot pieces.

I called my dad and he said he had some I could use. So, yesterday I went down to his place and picked up some 1/2" and 3/4" pipe. Then I stopped at Lowes again (actually, a different Lowes) and got flux, solder, and a compression fitting for the back of the fridge.

Then, last night after the kids were in bed and Christine was getting ready to get to bed, I got to work. I had already soldered and attached the tee, ball valve, and the flexible pipe. I just needed to sweat the old flexible pipe off and solder the new one on, affix it to the water heater, and connect the tubing going to the ice maker to the ball valve.

There was a heavy ball valve above the pipe going into the water heater and it looked like it was a convenient way to turn off the hot water by shutting off the water going into the water heater, so I decided to use it in lieu of turning off the water main.

I started loosening the compression fitting at the bottom of the flexible pipe going into the water heater and there was a little water spraying out as I loosened it, but it seemed to be losing pressure as I went - which I expected as the system depressurized after being turned off.

When I nearly had the compression fitting off, the fitting popped up. Then water came gushing out at full pressure. This was all at eye-level above the water heater so all the water was hitting me in the chest and below. I bolted across the basement to the main water valve and shut it off. That stopped the water from gushing. I went back to the water heater and the floor on all sides around the water heater and furnace were covered with water.

Christine came downstairs at this point because of the loud noise and just shook her head and told me there was a bag of towels behind me where we were storing a bunch of stuff.

I looked again at the plumbing to see if I could understand what had happened. I don’t understand why they did it, but the previous occupants of the house cut into the one-inch main line coming into the house and put it into a meandering jaunt of 3/4" plastic tubing and metal elbows that looks a little like Manibloc or something. This connects to the 3/4" pipe that goes into the water heater, but it connects below the ball valve I mistakenly assumed would shut off the water.

Well, I got my new stuff soldered in and the ice maker line connected. We have ice now. It’s nice, but it didn’t happen without some fun!

Hecticus Decorum

I talked to Jennie tonight. She’s growing more and more frustrated with Smoochy*. She told me she feels ready to get the legal separation back on track because nothing is improving and Smoochy* seems oblivious to it.

I told Jennie the best thing would be for Smoochy* to move out of the house again. When he was living with his work buddy, he and Jennie were getting along better than they had in weeks. They were going out on dates and generally being really nice to each other. Then, he moved himself back in and, in Jennie’s words, he’s been a “real jerk” since then and Jennie doesn’t want to do anything with Smoochy* or even be around him.

Jennie told me tonight she was going to tell Smoochy* she wanted him to move out again. I told her to tell him it was the best thing to do whether he was interested in working things out with their marriage or not. If they’re going to work things out, it’s not looking good for them right now living together. If they’re not going to work things out, he’s going to be out of the house soon anyway.

So, now, it’s just wait-n-see time. Nobody really expects Smoochy* to be cordial and move back out, but we’ll see.

On another note, I promised Jennie a website for Christmas and I finally delivered one. It’s (temporarily) at <http://jennie.fozzilinymoo.org/>. I’m looking forward to seeing what Jennie puts in her “Jenn-a-log.”