Tap Dance

So, to continue with the Amazing Adventures of Plumber Man…..

Undoubtedly, one of his favourite Things To Do is to make holes through walls. The hole for the sink drainage was a relatively simple matter because it was through the outside wall of the seventies extension to the main house, which, being ‘new’ in construction terms, has walls of humanly comprehensible proportions. The old wall at the front of the house above the cellar (where our much longed-for outside tap was intended to reside) is, by contrast, Very Thick Indeed. Much thicker in fact than the length of any of Plumber Man’s drill bits. Which of course meant he thought he would either have to a) drill into the wall from inside the cellar, and then do some Very Careful Measuring to locate the exact same spot on the outside of the wall, from whence to drill from the opposite direction, hopeful of meeting up with hole number one; or b) excavate a pit in the wall, so as to make the remaining structure thin enough for his drill to fit through.

After looking at the problem from all sides, and carefully considering the probability of success using approach a), (which was thought to be slim in the extreme), Plumber Man opted for approach b), and set to, with a hammer drill and Big Chisel to sculpt the wall into manageable proportions. But despite his immense strength, mighty will, and superior weaponage, Plumber Man could not penetrate the unearthly resistance of the force field of the Wall of Plenty. So he put down his weapons, stood back, and called upon his super powers for inspiration. Then Plumber Man did an unusual thing for a Man of Great Focus. He Thought Laterally.

Instead of going through the wall just below where the tap would be, and having only one vertical length of pipe on the outside of the house, he could drill through the Slightly Less Thick bit of wall just below the sort-of window that lets a little bit of light (and – if you forget to shut it – quite a lot of cats) into the cellar, and put the horizontal stretch of pipe on the outside wall too. By his own immodest admission, Plumber Man has “quite a big drill, by most people’s standards”, and he was reasonably certain he could make it all the way through in one go. Nevertheless, he has taken this experience as an omen that he needs to buy a metre-long drill bit. Well, at only thirteen euros, why ever not? It’s bound to come in useful at some point. Even though, at the time of writing this, I confess I am struggling to imagine a situation in which any more Very Big Holes will need to be made. Still, a Man can never have Too Many Tools.

The dogs love it when Simon drills in the cellar. I can tell, because they treat the whole village to their clamorous cacophony of joy. And my heart soared with their penetrating barks when, much to this mere mortal’s amazement, the point of the drill finally burst through the Wall of Plenty, and the way was open for the Pipe’s progress.

Now, over the years, Plumber Man has discovered a nifty little trick for installing new pipework which requires various lengths to be fixed together at different angles, to negotiate corners and such like. Rather than spend hours alone in dirty dark cellars fixing one bit of pipe to the next as he goes along, Plumber Man does all his clever Working Out in advance, and then puts together the whole caboodle (as far as he is able) outside in the sunshine (or daylight, at least). This approach means that it is much easier to heat the solder all the way round the joints and, instead of leaving lots of unsightly burn marks on the wall, it results in the wonderful creation of a free-standing, many angled length of copper sculpture, that can be fully Appreciated and Admired by All, before it is attached to the fixed start and end points, and hidden away forever behind the mass of miscellany that magically gets to lean up against walls, wherever they may be.

This cunning approach requires at least three things to make it successful. One is a fully functioning blow-torch. Another, is the ability to be able to mentally rotate the image of the soon-to-be-assembled pipework, so that bits come off other bits in the right places and at the correct angles. And the third is the sense to consider whether there may be any obstacles to the final placement of the assemble creation in its intended place of rest.

Well, Plumber Man’s blow torch was fully functioning for all of five minutes, until he turned it off to prepare the next joint with flux and whatever. And then, could he light it again? Could he buggery. The canister wasn’t empty, and the nozzle was clean as a whistle, but it would not stay alight. Plumber Man began to get a little cross. After repeated attempts to light the recalcitrant flame-thrower, Simon intimated that this piece of equipment had “always been crap”, and complained that he’d had problems with it right from the start. After my obviously ludicrous suggestions as to the possible cause of its malfunction had been summarily rebutted (When, oh when will I EVER learn…), the conclusion was reached that A New Blow Torch was required. But clearly it would be an unwise use of time to drive all the way to Montlucon to get an item of Worth and Good Value from the sacred Bricodepot – the damn pipework was sitting here with nasty chemicals smeared all over its sticky-out bits, and rain was on its way, and, dammit, Plumber Man was actually getting a bit fed up with all this plumbing, and felt like a bit of a sit down.

So there was nothing for it but for Plumber Man to perform his second ‘popping’ of the day to Les Briconautes, in Cosne. All the half-assembled pipework was brought into the house and rested precariously across the table, with firm instructions for me to make sure that the animals didn’t touch it. Plumber Man had obviously overlooked the fact that Animal Whispering Woman has yet to perfect the mind-control skills required to direct the wilful behaviour of three nosey dogs and five curious cats. However, when he returned forty-five minutes later with his fire-making treasure (which worked a million times better than his first one ever had) all was, surprisingly, well.

Plumber Man retrieved his creation from the living room, with only minor drippage of toxicity on the tiles, and continued his mission. Although, being a man, he obviously has good spatial skills, Simon likes me to feel involved in his work (on his own terms) and sought a second opinion from me about whether he had indeed assembled the joints in the correct directions. I couldn’t help thinking that my advice might have been more useful before the joints had actually been soldered, but there you go. One quick look and a bit of mental image manipulation, and I was able to confirm that, luckily for him, Plumber Man had triumphed again. I may be a woman, but I am a woman with the male pattern of finger length. Which means I can read maps and park cars. And tell at a smug glance whether a many-cornered piece of pipework will do what it is supposed to do, when it is turned upside down and roundabout.

So apart from the problem with the tools, this was all going Rather Well. Until Simon once again called me outside to assist with a ‘slight problem’. Having created this gorgeous snake of angular metal that would fit through the hole in the wall and along its the contours perfectly, Plumber Man had somehow managed to completely overlook the fact that a Very Big Vine was growing out of the ground and up the wall at exactly the point where the longest straight length of the pipe needed to go. And so ensued an interesting interlude in which we played a very big version of those metal ring puzzle games you get in Christmas crackers, where you have to fit some big, long shape through a smaller shape, that seems impossible until you suddenly managed to achieve it (and then you can’t remember what you did). And as I lifted and contorted the extensive vine branches, and Simon struggled to manipulate his copper creation through the impossible-looking space the vine outlined, I wondered if maybe, just maybe, it would have been easier to put the straight bit of pipe behind the vine first, and then solder the angled joints on either end.

But Plumber Man has His Way, and if, in the end, His Way works, then who am I to complain. The upshot of it all is that, after all the fun and games, we now have a beautiful outside tap, complete with a hideously ugly, big green plastic hose reel contraption adorning the front wall next to the barn door. And because the distance between the tap and the mains is so short the water pressure is wonderful, and a bucket fills in less than no time. And the hose reaches to Mars and back, and doesn’t get squashed or twisted or tangled because of the ugly plastic contraption thingy. And another whole lot of Water-related Joy has come my way.

In fact, there is just so much joy to be had from the outcomes of Plumber Man’s recent exploits, that I’m not sure that I can handle much more of it just now. So it is probably a Good Thing that Plumber Man intends to retire from action for the time being, and metamorphose into Mower Man who will valiantly tackle the triffid-like encroachment of Very Long Grass and Very Tall Nettles, that have sprung up here, there and everywhere around our house and land, like mutinous green insurgents, whilst Mower Man has been busy saving a different part of the Universe.

He just needs a bit of a break in the rain, is all.

This entry was posted in Life, Plumbing. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to Tap Dance

  1. Noreen says:

    Such a lovely outside tap! And the ugly plastic contraption thingy isn’t too bad! At least you can wind it back out of sight. I have one that stands on the floor and it hurts my back winding it back up. Soooo I don’t! It snakes along my garden path (that isn’t made yet) and there it stays! I tangle my feet in it everytime I go to water the plants.

  2. Val says:

    Yeah, the one we have at the back of the house does that. CBA to reel it in after every use, so it stays out and gets muddy and progressively more tangled, and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the bored dogs decide to chew a hole in it. An outside tap at the back of the house is ‘on the list’, but I can’t see us bothering to get another fancy wall-mounted hose reel anyway, so the snake problem will remain.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.