OK, so I wouldn’t really call this a ‘disaster’ as such – probably just a small cock-up; but in our few years of being DIYers we were yet to have any sort of disaster. The only issues we’d ever had was mis-measuring lengths of skirting board which never mattered too much anyway as we just re-used the mis-measured piece elsewhere. Whether it was down to luck or being super cautious, no major mistakes had been made.
Until this happened.
Someone put a nail through the water pipe. That someone wasn’t even me – nope, it was my DIY partner in crime, also my boyfriend and co-mortgage owner, Grant.
After re-routing the plumbing back in Spring, we decided to leave the floorboards un-nailed just to make sure everything was OK. Months later, no leaks, feeling super relieved, it was time to nail them back down! And then of course, this happened. Grant’s defence was “he didn’t know the pipes were there” … Are you sure darling? Cause YOU put them there! “Oh yeah.” – These pipes ran the whole length of the floorboard, so the nails have needed to been strategically placed on either side of the pipes. Grant forgot to check for pipes altogether, so he was pretty much guaranteed to hit the pipe along this board at some point!
Here is his sorry face…
We quickly shut off the water and planned our next step. We really didn’t want to get the soldering torch back out.. the hole in the pipe was RIGHT along the joist, we wouldn’t be able to drain the water very well, it was a complete hassle the first time, oh the excuses went on. Grant was convinced he could use his soldering iron (the ones used for electrical work, I think?) to fix it… It was a mad idea that I was convinced wouldn’t work, and no, it did not.
Our other options were to remove a section of pipe and use two compression fittings to fit a new non-nailed piece of pipe. Or otherwise or final option was to use some self-bonding emergency repair tape. Personally I would have gone for the compression fittings, but Grant who was insistent that he would be the one to fix the error, decided to go for the tape.
It worked, there’s no longer a leak. But I am certainly dubious about the longevity of this tape! I think we’re going to leave this particular floorboard un-nailed and come back to it at a later date. Did I mention how much we hate soldering?
What’s your worst DIY disaster?
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