My Brother, My Plumber

My younger brother Patrick Floyd, is a true renaissance man. DaVinci would be proud of him. It has been said by those familiar with such things that he knows more about school budgets and financing than any other person in the state. I have no doubt that he probably knows even more than they realize. It is a lesson in humility to even be related to him.
I am one of the few that realize that his secret desire is to really be a plumber. He is constantly finding new challenges to learn from and plumb. During a recent experience he shared with us some important lessons on what to do (or not do) when you attack a common household water issue:

Ben, Bear, and I made a quick trip to Richfield to fix the sprinklers. I wanted this to be a bonding experience -- one where I could pass along my extensive plumbing knowledge and hopefully make Ben a little proud of his old man. So, knowing that we have sprinkler problem, we dig up the sprinklers, right?

Lesson #1 how to dig a hole.
After digging a very nice hole, we took apart the sprinklers.

Lesson #2 how to use monkey wrenches. We identified a likely malfunctioning valve and took it two plumbing parts stores to get a replacement.

Lesson #3 sometimes trying the new place in town is a waste of time. Better to start with the old reliables. At Peterson’s plumbing we learned our replacement part cost $95.00. That was the bad the news. The good news was that Donny was pretty sure that part wasn’t our problem.

Lessons #4 consult the professionals. So, instead of buying the part, we asked Donny what our problem was most likely to be. He just thought the whole thing weird and could only come up with a possible rock in the system.

Lesson #5 professionals don’t always have a good answer.

We went back home and tested our old part. It seemed to work just fine. Also checked for rocks, couldn’t find any. We puzzled and puzzled until our puzzlers were sore. Finally decided that maybe the whole system (outside and in) was suffering from low pressure. Decided to call the city and have them check the water pressure.

Lesson #6 when the chips are down, it’s ok to ask for help from the government and, to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, when you’ve eliminated all other possibilities, the remaining possibility, no matter how improbable, must be the right one. In less than an hour, Ken Blackett (or, at least that who Charlie told me it was) came to check the water pressure. Instead, he took one look and said that he thought he knew what our problem was. He said that someone a couple of blocks away had the same problem just a few days ago. He took out our pressure reducer and, instead of replacing it, (said we really didn’t need it) merely bridged the gap with some PVC pipe he had in his truck. And, it worked. Pressure increased significantly. Ken told us not to mention what he did since technically we should have paid a plumber to do the work.

Lesson #7 sometimes the government does help.

Next, we had to reassemble the sprinklers that really didn’t need to be disassembled in the first place. Of course, we broke a pipe trying get things put back together.

Lesson #8 when you mess with something long enough, you’ll eventually break it. While I went to buy parts, Ben mowed the lawn. Once we got the parts, we managed to reassembly the sprinklers without too much more fuss.

Lesson #9 PVC pipe is one of the greatest inventions of 20^th century! I filled in the hole (the one that didn’t need to be dug in the first place) while Ben showered, packed our bags and cleaned the house.

Lesson#10
teamwork makes the jobs go faster. We left Richfield at 6:00 which tickled Ben since he thought we wouldn’t be leaving until much later. All in all, we had a productive trip. I couldn’t have done the job without Ben’s help and Bear’s supervision.

Thanks Pat. Anybody want to buy a house?? Strategic porch viewing area for all funeral processions to City Cemetery!