On Friday, I decided to work on our irrigation system as I had a few more things to finish up since our main plumbing problem of last month. While I was finishing the plumbing, I decided to replace the fill valve for our pool with an electronically controlled, sprinkler valve. I already had an anti-siphon device, so I just needed the valve. The old valve leaked and I had to manually remember to shut it off.
I went to unscrew the old valve and as I was doing it, the valve started turning where it shouldn’t. I then realized that I had a problem. Oh no, another call to a plumber. I called my dad and he said to call my brother-in-law who had tools to do plumbing work. My brother-in-law, Chris, came over and tried to solder a cap in the line. Chris is an attorney, not a plumber, so he did his best. Unfortunately his work didn’t hold and I was all set to call a plumber when my wife, Janessa, said that she wanted to take a crack at it. She does jewelry work and has soldered before. We left her alone and she soldered away. When I came back, she had finished the first joint and then started on the second joint. She finished, when tested it and bingo, it worked!
The only reason I hesitated in letting her take a crack at it in the first place is that she had never worked with plumbing or pipes before. However, soldering is soldering. I shouldn’t have doubted her skills. Janessa might reject her soldering as now I can task her with tricky household maintenance work :-).
Amazing….. I’m impressed. Your wife can do it. She has the ability of being a plumber. Even she is woman no doubt she can do many things especially in plumbing matters. This only proves that not only husband are capable of doing things like that but also the wife.
Congratulations on Janessa tacking a crack at plumbing. We actually have a company here in Raleigh, NC that is operated solely by women. I;ll tell you that much they are really good plumbers. Some women are even better that male plumbers specifically because many women are a little better than man at organizational skills. The best combination I found is actually man/women team working together. Than you get the best of both worlds. Thanks for interesting post.
That is so cool that she was able to do it! My brother in-law and his cousin are Boston Plumbers and every time we have family get togethers they’re always talking about what a “man’s” job it is and blah blah blah. I will have to show them this post! Ha, I might even tell them I can do the job better than they can!