This month's unanticipated expense

[magid]

I finally caved and called a plumber to come Friday: the bathroom sink had not been draining properly for a while (read: was almost completely clogged), and my best efforts to get the widget off the pipe so I could drain and snake the pipes under the sink had unfortunately been unsuccessful. Plus the toilet wasn't flushing properly. It worked, but it needed more attention than one would like to have to give, ideally. So the plumbers came and did, and now the toilet flushes properly (aren't you happy to hear that?), though with a sound completely different than the old sound, that I'm still getting used to (and a different style handle, too). And I now believe that there may be some sort of monster living in the pipes under the sink, vacuuming down the draining water, it goes down so quickly. I hadn't realized how much happier this would make me...

(annoyed that the first post, which was, of course, ever so much more cleverly written, got et by the LJ gremlins, but otherwise glad about this improvement)

Comments

[mangosteen]

So, what did the plumbers actually do?

[magid.livejournal.com]

Under the sink: I have a sink that doesn't have a removeable trap. Instead, there's a thin cap at the bottom of a turn of pipe that I was unable to get off with a wrench, since it was so thin. The plumber got it off with a wrench, then snaked the pipes leading to the sink with a motorized snake (I have an ordinary, not motorized, one). He got a bunch of disgusting stuff out, including the rather-expected hair, and other stuff that made him ask if I'd put dirt (!) down the sink. I have to ask what the cleaners are doing.... I think he went farther in the pipes than I could've, in much less time. And I didn't have to deal with disposing of the disgusting products, either.

The toilet: I knew something was wrong with the handle, since it was sitting at a wrong angle, so jiggling had to be done to get the flapper to lie properly after flushing. The guy looked at it, said the flapper was already close to replacement time (no surprise), quoted two prices, one for fixing the toilet, one for replacing the stuff in the tank. Of course, fixing was not so much less than replacing, came with a warrantee, etc, so I agreed to the higher price. Which got me pretty much a new everything inside the tank, and a new handle on the outside. (I wasn't watching this; there's not so much room in my bathroom, and I was (finally) eating lunch.)
m