Saturday 6 October 2012

Never jump to conclusions or make assumptions - a cautionary tale for serious potterers.

I think this is fringe pottering because it started with the intention to carry out an almost essential maintenance task.  The degree of importance depends on on your cleanliness threshold, mine varies considerably depending on what contaminates I have been exposed to.  On a scale of 1 to10, public lavatories would score 10 and bit of gardening 1 or 2.  Anyway to get to the point, the shower drain was blocked which I didn't discover until about 10-30pm, and after an unsuccessful attempt to clear it via the trap, accessible from the top, I decided the only way was to cut a hole in the ceiling to get at the trap from below, but by about 12pm had not been able to unscrew the sump of the trap.  So false assumption No: 1 the bottom of the trap is removable, well no it isn't actually and fortunately due to my cautious nature I decided to check this before doing any damage.  First trawled the internet for technical drawings to show how it came to pieces to no avail (probably because it doesn't).  Gave up for the day.

Next morning I rang plumb centre to find out the awful truth - "if it comes off you've broken it".... well fortunately I hadn't so time to reassess the situation.  False assumption No: 2 just because you can't see it doesn't prove it isn't there.  This refers to the fact that there is actually access to the pipe from above but although you can't see it, it's there all the same and you have to feel around until you find it then attempt to clear it by poking something along the pipe such as the drain clearing wire I already had.  This was were having already cut a hole in the ceiling proved to be useful because I knew that I had to get the wire round two 90degree bends before getting very far.  Eventually success, I removed a large plug of hair (not mine) from somewhere and then things began to return to normal, pretty revolting but that's why it's pottering on the fringe or extreme pottering, not something to be undertaken lightly or without being aware of the possible consequences.  Every cloud has a silver lining though,  I could see the possibility of mainline pottering on the horizon; the hole in the ceiling which would require enlarging to make access, should it be necessary in the future, easier.  A removable hatch would be needed to cover the hole and look tidy and yes, real pottering, I could do this in my workshop.  But I was in for a shock. While enlarging the hole what does one do to check for any debris that might be present? put your hand through the existing carefully researched hole feel around and find a bit of brick, ok, some bits of plaster, etc, and a dead rat, WHAT! yes a real semi decomposed dead rat in the joist space.  Well now I really did need a shower and after bravely surviving the day with my subconscious contamination warning gauge hovering around the 9 mark I managed to test the apparatus and get relatively clean at the same time while reflecting on the possibility of extending the pottering potential of this episode to include a filter of some sort to prevent a further occurrence of hair blockage.

The moral of this story as already alluded to - assume nothing but also expect a dead rat to turn up from time to time.    

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