Cold Water Tap

I managed to strip the cold water faucet on the tub last week. Good news is that I had an external spigot handle which worked so there was no hurry. On Friday I eventually got around to calling Richard, the landlord, and asked him if he would like me to fix it or call a plumber. He wisely said I should give it a go.

So on Saturday I went over to our local Mitre-10 and asked if they have any handles laying around as I could not find any in the by all the kitchen and bathroom fixtures. The helpful man walked me to the other side of the store (okay it isn't very big but you get the idea, not by the fixtures and fittings.) And there they were nice metal handles (that would be pressed tin that will rust in two years in our humid climate) for only $84 a set! Sticker Shock! He saw the look on my face, and probably heard the audible grown. And said "We have cheaper ones they are sold out now, but I can order them." He then pointed to the rack of "crystal" handles (that would be cheap chinese plastic) for a mere $75 a pair. As this is a family blog I will not let you know what I said to that.

Knowing that I would not be buying anything (as I did not walk into the store with enough cash I opened the box anyway and noticed something that once again reminded me of how much I love this place. Instead of a dozen different types of handles each with a different type of fitting to the faucet. In the box there were four (well eight) little nylon inserts to fit on the various different types of plumbing around here. I jokingly said to the guy "How much for me to just take this little piece of nylon?"

He walked down the aisle and pointed to another rack with a bunch of individually bagged nylon inserts for only $3.50 each. Now were talking! Getting down to my price range. And as luck would have it nothing was quite the one that I needed. I imagine what I was looking for was in the sold out rack to the left. But hey after 30 months in the country I have adopted the kiwi can-do attitude (we would call that good ol' Yankee ingenuity) and bought the closest match.

Back at the ranch I confirmed that it did not fit and ignored it for 24 hours. The next day I tackled the job. gathered my tools in this case a hammer and pocket knife. First thing I did was find out if there was a polarity to the insert, and yes it was, it only fit in the handle one way so I marked it and moved on to the fun stuff, playing with knives. I carved a bit of the nylon out of the the insert and gently (very gently Richard!) tapped it on the fixture.

I then slipped the handle over the nylon and screwed it in voila it worked!