Tag: do-it-yourself

When I First Met You, Panties Droppin’

I was cleaning the bathroom up (Adam’s a great handyman but he can’t pick up after himself to save his life), and Adam was like, Oh, yeah, you want to take pictures. I told him that I don’t want to before the floor was done, but then I decided to because it’s progress, so I took some pictures 😊.

The featured image is our new bidet toilet, and that has been an emotional roller coaster. In short, I am not digging it and I want my bidet seat back. Well, I like it 90%, but the 10% hatred sends me into meltdown mode. The pressure for the spray is just nothing compared to my Bio Bidet, which broke while the water was off for the leak. The remote sucks and is complicated. I wish I could pair the BB remote with the new toilet.

I love the look of it (for the most part; I prefer shiny and not matte finish), which I was unsure about since it is U-shaped and other ones are egg or oval. I like the auto-rising lid, although it goes up and down while I am/we are walking around in the room or doing something. I think it will tire quickly. It supposedly has four pressure levels, and they all feel exactly the same to me.

I sat on the floor with my hand on the sensor and did a wash, and the water shot across the room and hit the cabinet (sounds like good pressure, huh?), so Adam brought me a towel and watched me hit the + button and there was no change. I don’t know if I am missing something or got a defective unit or what. They have clumped so many features together in a few buttons and trying to read the manual is surprisingly hard. I’ll show you, and add a funny part that we laughed heartily about.

Not very helpful.
🤣🤣🤣

There are no ratings or reviews for this bidet at Home Depot, and no one else is selling this brand. However, it is being sold on Amazon under another brand name. There, it has three 5-star reviews, but no questions asked or answered, no mention of the spray/pressure, all new bidet users without anything to compare to, and no obvious place to contact the manufacturer. Adam tried calling support from the manual, but there is no 800 number and he couldn’t make the international call with his phone plan. *Sigh* I should have taken the scratch/repair on the front of the toilet (below) as sign of what was to come.

One good thing is that the bathroom floor is almost done. What partially negates that is I can feel it give where Piper peed on the floor near the wall now that the sheet flooring is up 😒. Part of the floor will need to be replaced, maybe 1′ x 3′, which means the tiles we placed will need to come up, and I don’t think they will re-stick. Hopefully, I have enough left over. All that the floor needs now, on the good parts, is black caulking around the perimeter after Adam straightens some of the tiles. The photos really wash the floor out. It is black with marbly-looking veins.

I’ve been melting down and crying nearly every time I use the bathroom. We both said that if I cried, we would send it back because of what happened with the dishwasher, but I hope I’m just doing something incorrectly with the remote. If it’s defective, I have 90 days to return it. Adam put the (100-pound) toilet in and hooked it up, took it out when I was upset about it, and then reinstalled it when I told him I wanted to play around with it to see if I can figure it out. I hope the poor boy has been eating his Wheaties.

Seriously Sick of Water

Anyone who knows me knows that I love water. It is one thing I love being in and around that soothes me, whether I’m looking at it, listening to it, or swimming in it. Now…I am so flippin’ sick of water! I never thought I would ever say or think that.

The Good

Adam got the leak fixed! It was down right at the meter (very easily could have been the water department’s responsibility to fix), so much so that Adam had to remove the pipe thing that houses the meter in order to fix the broken pipe. He dug a big ol’ hole over 5 feet deep, but I only took a picture of the small hole he dug when he found the leak site. I could see his blond head out there bobbing up and down at ground level when I checked on him. The new piece of pipe was cheap, but he had to change some parts that they don’t make anymore, and those cost $50 after buying the pipe 😒. He didn’t know he needed the extra parts, so we had to go without water for around 12 hours, give or take.

The Bad

Water is something we totally take for granted, so neither of us thought about the important-yet-mundane things like the ice maker and the bidet. I mean, that stuff is always there, you know? Oh, and the kids needed water, too. Oops. Adam went to our neighbor’s with a couple of gallon jugs, and they graciously allowed him to fill them up. We went to bed after that, and Adam finished fixing the leak in the morning when the parts arrived via Door Dash (Black Betty is still not fixed).

The Ugly

Our celebration turned to consternation when I went to the kitchen to get ice. The ice maker wasn’t working even though Adam had turned the water back on and the ice maker was on. That was distressing because a replacement is $100, and we could not find our ice cube trays. I know they are here somewhere…

So, he started tinkering with that, found some obstructions and cleared them and dried the ice maker, and then we just had to wait. Meanwhile, he discovered that the bidet was leaking. I remembered hearing it dripping in the morning while Adam was sleeping, but then I forgot about it. It wasn’t a huge drip. It’s just like a bunch of dominoes here, I swear.

He tried to fix the bidet and had no luck with it, so he unplugged it and turned the water off to the toilet. I can’t get a new bidet for several weeks, which really sucks because I love having one and need one because of my shoulders and stupid peri, and we don’t have to buy toilet paper since we use washable Unpaper. I thought it was an either/or deal, so when I plugged the bidet in and turned the water on to use the bathroom, I left the water on and unplugged the bidet so it wouldn’t fill back up and leak. That was the wrong thing to do.

The bidet leak was even bigger and water was running down the toilet and onto the floor and into Mom’s bedroom. Adam thought the dogs had bumped their water bowl, and I mentioned that it might be the toilet (because why not at this point?). It was the toilet 😑. When he was working on the bidet, he pinched the hose somehow when putting it back together and it snapped in two, so water was running continuously from the bidet onto the floor. He wanted me to see it, but I did not want to see it because I am pretty fed up with life right now, but I did the good wifely thing and took him a flashlight when he asked for one.

I don’t know which leprechaun I pissed off, but if you’re reading this, I am really sorry, and we are trying here. Really.

Is it Still Raining? I Drought It.

I bought the wrong size subfloor 🙄. Adam got the floor laid down in the tiny utility room but not nailed/secured because I have to get the right size. Since it’s a smaller room, I wanted to get , 2′ x 4′ boards instead of 4′ x 8′, so I searched for 23/32″ boards, which is what the rest of the house is, and bought them online without noting the thickness that showed up in the search results. The ones I got are maybe half that thickness and give when I walk on them. I looked up the size I bought, and they aren’t recommended for regular subfloor; more for attics. Certainly not in front of one of the main doors! I felt so stupid. For right now, he doubled what is down, and once again I have to avoid walking in there. It looks better than it did, though!

Adam is going to have to do some cutting and finagling so we have a floor instead of a bridge between the furnace and water tank houses, but since I got the incorrect subfloor, that isn’t something he can do now. To make my mistake even better, I wasted $79 for delivery. I’m sure I can find something to do with the boards, but I don’t know what yet.

I have been taking Phin out with me when I go out on the porch because he loves to eat grass and greenery, to the point that he will climb me if I have a flower in my hair (something I do when Adam brings me one). I put a small dog leash on him and attach it to the cable we have out there. He loves it a little too much and now nonchalantly walks out the door when I have it open to yell for the boys to come in. Luckily, since he can’t see, he doesn’t just take off and jump off the porch, so I have the time to step out and scoop him up before he gets too far. I have a knack for creating monsters 🤣🤣. He sits at the door and meows to be let out now, too.

A few days ago, I was lying in bed in Mom’s room watching TV, and I heard Phin meowing. I thought it was on my movie at first. I told Adam, so he started calling for Phin and looking for him, as Phin gets lost very frequently and cries until we find him or he follows our voice(s) to the room we’re in. Adam checked behind all the closed doors and outside. About the time I was thinking Phin could have climbed under the floor in the kitchen and was going to get up to help with the search, Adams walks into the bedroom holding a defeated-looking Phin and places him on my pillow. He’s a bit dusty and disoriented and sneezy. Indeed, he had climbed under the subfloor by way of one of the open spaces in the boards between the kitchen and utility room. Probably where the water pipes are near the furnace.

Adam said Phin came right to him when he heard him and he was able to lift him out. He was just down there walking around on the insulation 🙄. Adam covered the openings with our handy dandy coffee table top and a few other wood pieces from when he dismantled furniture I wanted to be rid of.

Phin was missing a day or two later, and the hunt was on again. Adam saw that the boys, Nev and Ollie, had messed up his patch job in the kitchen, and once more, Phin was down under the floor. It is going to be a nightmare when Adam replaces the subfloor in other parts of the house. I have some plastic covering set to buy for when that time comes, but I don’t know how well that will work on a determined, blind cat. Mom’s room is on the other end of the kitchen, so Phin trekked quite a ways under the floor for me to be able to hear him the first time.

I waited excitedly for an entire month after we switched to a tankless water heater to see how much it improved the water bill. It had been $80+ for years, and it was in the $60 range when Mom was alive. When the water bill finally came, I burst into tears. It was $405. For a month. To their credit, the water company lady had called us to say we had a leak a bit after the tankless was installed. However, I thought she was talking about the leak that was just fixed, so Adam told her it was taken care of. But, no…this was a different leak, and much worse. What are the chances? Seriously. Our latest readings were 13,000 gallons of water a month, compared to an average of 1,300 (which is still high for two people).

Since there was no water anywhere in or under the house, I asked the lady to send someone out to see if the leak’s on our end or theirs. She completely ignored me (which I should be used to) and let another month go by and another $400 bill come in. With that bill, she sent someone out and he had Adam turn the water off to the house and he watched the meter. The new leak is somewhere between the water shutoff outside our house by the porch and the meter, which is about 30 yards, give or take.

This new leak didn’t happen until we switched from the hot water tank to tankless, and I have no idea why. Adam didn’t bother anything underground, which is where the new leak is located. It is one heck of a coincidence.

I contacted the American Leak Detection place, and they are going to come find the leak with some equipment, but they cannot do that while it is raining, which it has been doing here since February. The guy is supposed to come next Saturday, God willing and the creek don’t rise…which, the creek is rising since it’s been raining for months on end. After that, Adam and I are going to get a crash course in plumbing because we certainly can’t afford to pay a plumber to fix an underground leak. The water bill is over $1,000 now since we’ve had to wait until we had the money for the leak detection guy, and I hate knowing that I have to pay that when I didn’t even get to enjoy all that water. The only silver lining I can see is that the ground should be fairly soft to dig in since it’s…well, mud.

Water We Going to Do?

I briefly touched on this leaky subject, but since I can’t remember what I said and this blog is mainly for me, I will reiterate because I want to.

I noticed a black spot on the vinyl flooring in the kitchen roughly eight years ago. It was at the door/wall to the water heater, so, obviously, I was concerned there was a leak there, and Adam unscrewed the door/wall and checked for a wet floor and water damage. We didn’t see any. I thought it was from ice cubes that my cat, Phin, liked to play soccer with and didn’t eat when he was done. The spot never grew, and I eventually forgot about it, wishing to replace the vinyl flooring (at least that section) in the future when possible, but nothing pressing. At that time, it had been two years since a plumber replaced our water heater tank.

Fast-forward to last September, when I noticed the floor from the water heater and furnace alcoves, which are opposite each other, and coming into the kitchen felt more like rubber than OSB. We have a few weak spots in the entire house, which didn’t surprise me for a 20-year-old foundationed double-wide with no renovations to date, and only general maintenance. The spots are in high-traffic areas, with one being where the house halves meet in the middle of the living room, which has been weakish since Mom was alive pre-2014.

Of course, this concerned me a great deal because we don’t have the money for major repairs, so I start mentioning to Adam that I want him to check under the house for wet areas. After several months, I finally put my foot down and got him under there, where he found some wet-ish pipes, but nothing accumulating on the ground. And so the research begins; typical AuDHD fare for me when faced with a problem.

I decided the leak had something to do with the water heater (but no clue what) and I wanted to get a tankless water heater, which I had low-key wanted for months. I’d seen them mentioned before on Reddit and they sounded cool and were supposed to be more energy efficient and take up a lot less space. It would be a win all around. After more research, some Home Depot shopping, and confirming Adam could do the task himself, I became the owner of a new tankless water heat that was so cute and compact, and I was very excited to get it installed, but I needed some additional parts from Amazon, as they were $70+ cheaper than Walmart (Weird. Weird.), and Amazon usually has reasonable shipping times.

Just like what happened after buying Black Betty, we had a massive snowstorm with feet of snow and state-of-emergency weather after I got the vital parts ordered. These things took three months to get here because the roads were so bad, and I had to reorder them three times due to Amazon saying my items were either delivered or lost in transit. The order was broken up into three or four separate deliveries for some reason, so I had to wait for the refunds before reordering. It was a very stressful and lengthy process. The floor situation in the water tank “house” had escalated fairly quickly in those months, considering something had been leaking for a decade unbeknownst to us.

Leaning tower of water tank

All the parts finally got here by the beginning of 2025, and my excitement was back. Adam did his manly thing and, miraculously, removed the water tank by himself, got it walked outside to the porch, and installed the tankless.

Much better, and more room! Maybe some painting later.

While removing the water tank, Adam discovered that the plumber who installed the tank had cut a pipe too short, and the overflow, or whatever it’s called, was going directly under the flooring and on/into the subfloor. For ten years. The circle of floor seen above should not be sunken; hence, the leaning tank.

Just like with Mom’s car, I have no options or means to right this wrong that the “professional” committed. The floor from the side door (the utility room with the washer and dryer and standalone freezer) to some of the kitchen is ruined, and subfloor and flooring needs replaced. No home insurance because I still don’t know how to get Mom’s deed and get my name on it, not that I could afford the insurance, anyway.

The coffee tabletop has been very helpful to walk on.

And…that’s just the one leak that raised our bill roughly $20 a month for 10 years, which I attributed to inflation and greed. The next one is a lot worse and a crazy huge coincidence, which I will cover soon.

Catching Up…A Little More

I hurriedly tied up the last post, as I had started it in February after getting Black Betty (the truck), then promptly forgot about it until I logged in to create a catch-up post 😒. Anyway, our nephew’s friend came to change the struts on Black Betty (bam-a-lam) and was concerned about what he saw when he jacked her up. He told Adam it was a good thing Adam didn’t take the truck down to the fire department to replace the struts — which I had suggested since we don’t have a paved driveway — because the spring could “go” at any minute. He didn’t even want to back the truck up in the driveway.

Well, that just gave me another problem to solve, so I was off to the races to find a solution, which entailed Google and Reddit. I posted the picture (above) Adam took of the broken strut in a mechanic sub on Reddit, and the replies were terrifying. Everyone was very kind and patient, which is incredibly surprising for Reddit, but a lot of “grenade,” “bomb,” “dangerous,” and “kill you” were being thrown around, which had me shaking in my boots. They all said getting the spring out was scary work because it’s under so much tension. There is a spring compression tool, but many of the Redditors said it’s scary to use it and could be dangerous.

The helpful, yet discouraging information deflated my excitement balloon I’d had about having a truck. I looked up the cost of getting struts changed professionally and it was estimated to be between $1,500 and $3,000 for parts and labor. More than I paid for Betty. We have the new struts, and I read mechanics will work with supplied parts and only charge for labor, but labor would still be significant, especially with the condition the broken strut is in because getting it out is the problem. Adam has replaced normal struts before. The complicated labor is in addition to having Betty towed to a shop. I just…It just sucks. Not a lot has gone right since Mom died.

Next, I’ll tell you all about the water leaks and how we are using 13,000 gallons of water a month (our average use is around 1,300/month)!