Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Master of Moen

Well, I'm feeling pretty much like a champ right now.  I've had a small victory. And seeing as that this problem just took me only like 15 minutes to fix, it should be a small victory. But also seeing that this is something that's been bugging me since December makes it feel like more of a huge "I want to shout it to the world" victory, cause look at me, I FIGURED IT OUT!  Woo-hoo!!!

So what was this seemingly huge yet actually small problem?  Well, I'll tell you.  It all began in our master bathroom. Where we have two sinks. Sometime around the month of December, my cold water faucet handle popped off.  About a month later Corey's hot water handle popped off.  Then the next week his cold water handle did too.  We've been using one hot water handle for months.  And sharing my sink.  Which I don't mind so much, except for when my better half grabs my toothbrush instead of his.  I did do a small attempt once before as I googled "Moen 4570" which is the number on the faucet, but that short search didn't yeild anything.  It didn't look that complicated, but I guess I only gave half hearted attempts, as part of my thinking was "Aren't plumbing type things the man's job to fix?!?"  I know, sexist of me (sorry sweetie).

SO, this morning, as I was clearing off the counter and going through yesterday's junk mail, I was saving different coupons for plumbers and various other home repair issues, thinking I'd really like to get those handles fixed and "Maybe I'll just call my mom..." She's our family's go-to fix it lady, then I was wondering why I hadn't called her yet.  Probably cause eventhough it's something that bothers me, it's not urgent enough to be on my brain during conversations with her.  Shall I go call her?  But then I thought "Oh, come on, if Linda can do this, you can do this!  You can figure this out..."  And as I said, I've googled it before.  But I guess today the force was with me, cause I googled it again... "Moen 4570" but I searched for images this time to try and find our handles, which led me to this link, and there on step 4a was the key of knowledge I needed.
 Hey, that looks simple enough!  Hold the base and turn it counter clockwise - BINGO!
I didn't know the handle just unscrews from the sink like that, sweet.  So I went up and unscrewed it, and that was all I needed to be able to figure the rest of it out.  Of course, this would be the one day during the past 6 months that Corey takes the tool box to work!  Oh bother.  And there were like 4 phillips screwdrivers in there too, I should have grabbed one before he left.  I looked around the house though and did find a small flat headed screwdriver, and with that and my tweezers, I was able to fix the problem.  And seriously in around 15 minutes.
There's that little screw... I thought you were down there somewhere.
My previous attempt to fix the handles involved hot glue.  Worked for about a week, then it seemed to be wearing off the groves of the cartridge (?), which seemed like it would probably be a bad thing to do.  I just screwed the screw back to the handle and then screwed the whole handles back on to the sink.  I AM AWESOME!!!  And I've been singing "I fixed the sink handles" all morning.

SO, moral of the story and today's challenge: go pick an area or a think of something that's been bugging you everytime you walk past it or see it.  That area/thing is sapping your energy (that's along the lines of what Don Aslett would say in this profound book), so I bid you to GO! and take control of it and show that little annoyance who is Master!  And I'm sure I'm gonna be feeling so good about myself every time I use my sink, probably be gloating to myself everytime anyone uses those sink handles for the next month, oh yeah, "hear me roar!"  :)

3 comments:

  1. In my defense, I did make a trip to two different hardware stores and they didn't know how to handle this brand of handles.

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  2. That is true sweetheart. I'm sorry I didn't mention that. Corey went to Home Depot and Lowes and was left without any guidance. And now that I think about it, you know what, my confidence in the Home Improvement store employees just totally tanked, cause from what I now know, that was a seriously basic plumbing 101 problem. I can't believe they didn't know how to help you. Whoever you talked to must just not have tried at all. Or was totally new on the job, but still, that's kinda lame.

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  3. Sweet victory, indeed! Be proud of yourself, as you saved up some money by doing things on your own rather than calling the pros. If only all plumbing problems are this easy! Like you said, the moral of your post it to take control of the things that’s sapping your energy. That applies to all sorts of plumbing and other household woes – you have to take control of it, regardless if you be the one to work, rather than let it bug you all the time.

    Lovella Cushman @ Perfection Plumbing

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