Pride

One important do-it-yourselfer skill is knowing when to call in the pros. Partially because the pipes were already exposed and partially because of their condition, we made the decision to replace all of the plumbing in the house. Dominic had an upcoming surf trip to Baja planned, but he thought he’d have enough time to finish the work before he left. He had some experience in the arena of plumbing (and the idea of doing anything with a torch appealed to him), so he spent a lot of time practicing the various tasks involved before going to work replacing the pipes. He even taught me how to sweat joints. Each time he completed some of the plumbing project, we would turn the water back on and wait. The first time the pipes didn’t start leaking until the next day. The second time we heard the water bursting out of one of the seams about an hour after the water was turned back on. The third time Dominic looked at me wearily. He said, “I want you to call a plumber. But I want you to do it after I’m gone.” Sensing that his inner carpenter was suffering, I tried to cheer him up. After all, it was unrealistic to expect that he would be perfect at everything, and we just couldn’t risk putting all new construction over plumbing we were unsure of. So while he was catching some waves south of the border, I contacted a reliable plumber, obtained (more) financial help from Mom and Dad to make it happen, and made sure all traces of the “other man” were gone when Dominic returned, refreshed and excited about the next phase of work.