I Did A Thing!

Time again for my monthly post!  Ha. Ha.

Anyway, back in March, I replaced my kitchen sink, but I ended up re-attaching the same old, broken garbage disposal that I had, rather than purchase more connections to route the drains, when I'd planned on someday replacing that disposal.

I do a lot of costume work in trade for my friends in the SCA (see costuming blog), and I just recently took on a HUGE commission from a woman who traded me, not only for a BUNCH of cool fabric, but also for - you guessed it! - a brand-new garbage disposal that she'd purchased and then never installed.  Yay!!!

They sure do look nicer than they used to, don't they?  This one's even BLUE.

It goes with my house. Heehee.

Since no project of mine is ever complete without at least one supply run to the hardware store, the new disposal didn't have a power cord.

I have to say, at this point, that I have been drenched in the kindness of strangers this week.  A nice man stopped and helped me replace a flat tire on Monday.  Then Tuesday, at the tire shop, when I couldn't afford the tire repairs and new tire I needed, the manager there gave me a massive discount that he didn't have to give me, so that I could drive away on safe wheels.

Wednesday, my friend gave me this disposal, and when the power cord kit was a dollar and a half more than I had in my wallet, the salesperson at Home Depot gave me his employee discount so I could purchase it.  Wow!!

All done!  Wiring is super-easy.  I kind of love doing it.

And here, ladies and gents, is a clean, new sink, with a clean, new, WORKING garbage disposal.  It's quiet, too - standing right over the sink, I can barely hear the disposal it when it's on.

And this is the unit I removed, sitting in the enormous bin I've had under the sink to catch the leaks for the past, oh, like YEAR.

The gaskets had gone bad (probably just with age), and the motor flooded and stopped working.  The thing had been rusting inside (obviously), and had just been filling up with water and then leaking, over and over, since the motor stopped working, even though I wasn't using that side of the sink if I could help it.

Point of interest:  garbage disposal sludge smells like bong water and vomit.







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YATTA!!!*

IT'S FINISHED!!!

All in all, this took: 

• 6 cut-off wheels on the Dremel (cutting the hole in the stainless steel sink for the filter tap. I kept breaking them)
• about $30 in parts, most of which were returned to the store once I realized I didn't need them (options!) - when it was all said and done it ended up costing me about $12 for all of this
• 4 trips to Home Depot (fail, fail, fail and fail), and
• 1 trip to Lowe's during which I received not one but TWO outstanding customer servicings, and which solved all of my problems because they actually have employees who know what they're doing and are willing to help.  SUCK IT HOME DEPOT. 
• 10 days, all told, from start to finish (time, money). 

Turns out, all the stuff the people at HD were telling me was basically bullshit.  Or rather, generalized "advice" based on (a) not understanding what the real problem was (not just based on my description, but a series of detailed photos I took of the plumbing), and (b) not actually giving a shit.  The guy I ran into at Lowe's (David) had been a plumber and a steel pipe-fitter all his life, and saw the problem in the photos right away: the people who built my house jimmied the plumbing together with cheats and hacks, just like they did every other thing in my house (budget house = everything's half-assed and incorrectly done).  I'M SO SURPRISED.   Not.  Anyhow, David assembled all the correct parts from the shelves, showed me how it was supposed to go together, and then showed me what the original installers had done that was wrong, how to get it all apart, and how to re-do it the correct way.

After a week and a half of futzing with patches and fixes, following David's advice I got the entire thing gutted and then re-plumbed in just two hours.  I put my tools away, I cleaned up the kitchen, ran all the dishes that have been building up since the 15th through the dishwasher (living single perk: it was only two loads), and SAT THE HELL DOWN.

Soooo shinyyyyy....  *_*

And holy cow, this thing is 11" deep.  My old fiberglass one was 9.5", and I thought it was too deep for comfort (it was, while I was doing 100% of my dishes by hand).  But the extra inch and a half means I can wash large pots and cutting boards that don't fit into the dishwasher without splashing water all over the kitchen.  Yay!

So, my BFF thinks I'm insane for doing all this myself, especially given the headache it's been.  But I haven't just replaced my sink:  I've learned how to replace a sink.  I've disassembled and reassembled everything under and on top of this sink twice each, including the disposal and water filtration system.  I learned new cutting techniques, new chemical processes, a new system of sizes and methods.  And best of all, now I know that if I ever need  to do this again, for myself or to help someone else, I CAN.  That alone is worth every frustrating moment.

~ fin ~

[This post brought to you by Aerosmith, and much dancing-around-the-kitchen.]



* Japanese for, essentially, "Hooray, I did it!" 

A Kitchen CatastroF$@k (Part 1)

No, no, no - it's not that bad.   I just wanted to say "catastrofuck" (Jon Stewart's word).

So this happened: 

Hint:  not supposed to be in pieces.
Note: this happened during a cooking-intensive dinner party. AWESOME.

This bitty little clip, which is snapped in half, 

held the whole thing together.  

I looked online, but couldn't find a replacement clippy thing for this 10-yo faucet.  Fortunately, I actually had a replacement faucet and  sink in my garage - I was only waiting to buy a new disposal so that I could install everything together.

Unfortunately, the new faucet didn't fit the old sink; so the entire sink had to be replaced.

OBSTACLE

GROSS!!!  

GROSSSS. 

Finally, I manage to get the disposal off the sink:
AZIZ, LIGHT!!! 

All disassembled and ready for the install, hooray!  

I should note that this is only my second plumbing job, aside from replacing toilet flappers (anybody can do that);  and I'm pleased to report that the whole thing went really smoothly, and was far easier and quicker a job than I was anticipating.  From start to finish, everything you see in this blog post took about an hour and a half.

Dear Craigslist...

Now to install the new sink.... (continued in Part 2)



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