The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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6:47pm on Wednesday, 15th February, 2012:
Anecdote
On Monday this week, my younger daughter noticed a damp patch on the ceiling of our living room. It was in the part of the ceiling where the water could collect from either the shower or the toilet, or conceivably the pipes to the sink in the guest room. Last time this happened it left us with a hole in our living room ceiling that we didn't get repaired for over a year (while we got around to having a new shower installed, which leaked shortly afterwards so it was actually a wise decision to leave the ceiling open).
OK, so damp patches aren't generally good. We called the plumbers and they said that if it wasn't dripping then they'd come round to look on Tuesday afternoon (yesterday). Naturally they arrived while I was out attempting to teach CE217 students how to solve zero-sum stone/paper/scissors balance equations, but fortunately my father-in-law was present. They identified the problem as a mistake made by the rogue plumber who had originally installed our toilet: he'd used a join meant to hold copper pipes together to hold plastic pipes together, which had cracked the pipes. He'd covered it up with great globs of sealant that wasn't meant to hold back water, and five years later (that's now) it gave way.
Plumbers are busy at this time of year from repairing burst water pipes and broken-down boilers, but my father-in-law managed to persuade them to come round and fix the problem this afternoon. Unfortunately, he went back home to Newmarket this morning, so I had to be in myself while it was fixed. I say "unfortunately" because I was supposed to be at the university this afternoon attending a staff meeting that had been called to discuss some new university policy, so I had to make an emergency apology for my absence.
Missing a staff meeting in order to be present while a plumber prevents a leak from bringing down our living room ceiling: hmm. Would that we could have such leaks more often...
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Copyright © 2012 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).