Verdeboy
In the Trades
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nursedoe said:Some of us aren't renegades. Not even a little. Some of us just are in over our heads. This house takes so much work. I would love to hire a plumber and an electrician ( one that is not afraid of the dark or spiders). But, my thought is that if it costs $400.00 for 30 minute of pipe repair ( I added in drive time) , what is it going to cost to put in a sink? Or worse yet, the shower with the 2.25-2.5 inch thick concrete wall behind it.This was originally a two income house. It is now just me, so money is very tight. I have so many things I would rather be doing on my days off than crying over the leaking p trap I installed (BTW, I fixed it again) I would rather be swimming in the pool, or reading.
There should be a life 101 class. One thing I would have learned is that no matter how charming an older house is, you need to take a course in home repairs. Those huge beautiful trees that keep the house nice in the desert sun? They eat the plumbing! They will keep going through the main drain lines, no matter how much copper or root killer you throw down. Every six months the plumber comes and charges 100 bucks to snake the lines. For Christmas, I got a huge electric drain cleaner/snake. Woo-hoo! Now just waiting for baby trees to grow so we can chop down the beautiful trees that are five feet from the house eating my plumbing. All those galvinized iron drain pipes? They were all installed at the same time and are all disintegrating at the same time! They are NOT a do it yourself project.
So, some of us ( like me) fix it ourselves because otherwise it would just stay broken.
I understand how frustrating your job is. I understand it takes mad skills to figure out how to work around some pretty interesting pipe jobs. It only takes a few bad guys out there to make many of us nervous about hiring someone.
Are you afraid of spiders?
What you need is a good $30/hr handyman. My parents have one and they love him. They rarely have to call in a plumber or electrician, and he'll also fix drywall, do carpentry, painting, etc... Having a really good and reliable handyman is the next best thing to doing it all yourself.
