Chronicles of Handyman Will
I’ve never been the fix-it guy, always the get someone else to fix-it guy, I’ve relied on friends, family and total strangers to do things for me for as long as I’ve known – aside from putting furniture together I can list the manly things I’ve done on one finger of one hand…
All that has changed though… I’m now using powertools and erecting things on a regular basis and with relative success, I thought it prudent to Chronicle my achievements and thus, Handyman Will was borne.
Chapter V – How to install a dishwasher:
- Get scared and call a plumber for a pre-visit
Now, I’m not a man’s man, or at least I wasn’t but slowly and surely my balls are growing and my manliness is shining through (see previous chapters for hanging shelves, installing a cat flap and erections). The fear of flooding the kitchen or breaking something was too high so we advertised on myhammer.com for a plumber to have a look at installing a dishwasher for us – also, we figured we would have to lose a cupboard so the plumber may also need to be a carpenter.
We were instantly hit with a few e-mails from prospective subcontractors and got in contact with one who (after liaison) arrived – admitted he was more of an electrician than a plumber and his plumber friend was supposed to be joining him but ended up 30 miles in the wrong direction. This mishap aside I thought we were onto a good thing, he seemed friendly and knowledgeable but then spent 10 minutes umming and arring about what to do – and how to do it. He went away informing he would speak to his plumbing friend and come back to us (he never did).
Not long later we were in contact with (what I now think) was the electrician’s plumber’s friend. Again, he was very nice, but seemed to get stumped when we asked him for his advice… he spent 10 minutes umming and arring and suggested we lose some shelves in a cupboard and get a smaller dishwasher to fit in the cupboard.
Third times the charm… we got another gentleman (with an MBE) to have a look at what to do. He was much nicer than the others, admitted he was more of a handyman than a plumber (in fact he had no plumbing qualifications whatsoever but that didn’t put me off). As with the others he ummed and arred until I (that’s right me, the inexperienced one) suggested we don’t lose a cupboard or put a dishwasher in one of the cupboards but instead we put it next to the fridge and run cabling and piping under the cupboards. With a few seconds thought he thought that was the best idea and that it was relatively easy but would charge us £15 an hour and materials at cost and would take no longer than 4 hours all being well. It sounded good to me so we shook hands and he was going to e-mail us with his official quoted price… he never did.
Push came to shove and after everyone telling me I could do it myself, I decided we should get the dishwasher and look at doing it ourselves… I was almost convinced myself.
Money spent so far: £0
Time spent so far: 3 hours
Other expenses so far: £0
- Buy a dishwasher
This step sounds easy, but it wasn’t for us. Charlotte (my wife) and I spent hours arguing about which one to buy and why (I wanted the cheapest one because I’m tight, she wanted the best value). The hours spent weren’t in one session but a long drawn period of two weeks or so.
Eventually we decided to bite the bullet (which subsequently I’vejust researched the origin for that phrase – interesting), had two models in our heads and went to our local supplier. Unfortunately, on arrival a third model was entered into the mix which was the same price as the most expensive one but we would be saving over £100 on the original price, it was quieter, more efficient and had more settings… it was child’s play so we decided to get that one. I was also going to buy a Netbook on the same day, from the same store so the helpful (if not slobbish and non-fussed about anything) sales assistant checked the stock levels. She informed that they didn’t have the Netbook but another store (not too far away) had lots of Netbooks and 1 of the dishwasher we wanted so sent us there – very helpful we thought.
So, back in the car and because we couldn’t reserve over the phone, Charlotte drove like a bat out of hell (damn, just going to look at the origin of that phrase now…. well, technically according to the Greek origins I’m using that in completely the wrong context, ah well… she drove fast, that’ll do). We arrived at the store, found a sales person, found the model we wanted (with an extra £20 off – bargain) but they only had 1 in stock… the display one. Frustrated doesn’t quite half cut it – perhaps we should have thought that the only one in stock might’ve been display but sure idiot sales person at the other store would’ve known this… idiot. Push came to shove and we got money off and sorted a home delivery date.
Surprisingly we received the dishwasher as ordered, on time and with a smile. Now we had the dishwasher – all we had to do was fit it…
Money spent so far: £220
Time spent so far: 5 hours
Other expenses so far: Petrol… £20 perhaps?
- Fitting the dishwasher
The first stage of this stage was simple, work out how much piping we needed (inlets and outlets) so I removed the panelling, got out my trusty tape measure and took down the vital statistics.
The second stage was also pretty easy, find a how to guide, read it (admittedly I didn’t get past the ‘tools required’ section), understand it and store it in memory.
The third stage was the actual fitting, excited I was… for many reasons, however it didn’t really go as planned.
15/05/2010:
10:00 – Arrived at Homebasein Winchester, looked at the plumbing parts – saw they were quite expensive and didn’t have everything we wanted so we swiftly left.
11:30 – Arrived at B&Q in Eastleigh (there was a Tesco shop in between these times) – purchased 3x outlet extensions (two without all the parts of packaging so I scored £3 off), 2x inlet extensions, Self Cutting Tap, UNIVERSAL All-in-one sick trap thing and a trusty bucket – we realised the inlet and outlet connectors were cheaper in Homebase.
12:00 – Arrived at Homebase in Chandler’s Ford, purchased 3x outlet connectors and 4x inlet connectors.
13:00 – Arrived home, had lunch…
14:00 – Cleared area ready for the plumbing to begin, got out toolkit (which aside from the screwdriver I didn’t much use) and began…
14:30 – The first scary part over – I successfully installed the Self Cutting Tap which was awesomely easy.
15:00 – Took some effort but took off the original sink trap to replace with new sink trap – the gunk that was in it was disgusting yuck.
15:30 – Unsuccessful fitted the new UNIVERSAL sink trap… the dishwasher waste connector was too high so I had some decisions to make. Go and find a better suited sink trap, change original pipe work to make piping lower, cut into original pipe work and modify as required…
16:00 – Journeyed back to B&Q Eastleigh to re-look at piping. Could find no better sink trap so purchased an array of piping and a junior hacksaw (of which I had to ask another man if it would cut through piping – I felt like a little boy asking).
17:00 – Returned home to re-commence work – discovered original piping was GLUED together… knew something drastic would haveto be done – wife suggested perhaps we need a plumber – I didn’t react too well to this… sat there with my head in my hands for about 15 minutes trying to work out what to do next – in the meantime I tried to refit the old sink trap – which I couldn’t – I had broken the seal and I couldn’t get it resealed – got very VERY frustrated at myself – then I had screwed on the old sink trap to the sink so tightly that I couldn’t remove it (until I worked out that it wasn’t ‘lefty loosy, righty tighty’ but ‘lefty tighty, righty loosy’). Decided that I would have to hacksaw original piping, then add new piping to get it to the right height… but I needed more piping (because the bits I bought from B&Q weren’t quite right) so would wait for rush hour to be over and go back to Homebase once more.
18:00 – decided to try doing the piping of outlets and inlets as that would need to be done anyway, with a few mishaps it was tried and tested successfully.
19:00 – journeyed back to Homebase Winchester, returned unused outlet/inlet extension connectors and purchased 2x new bends.
20:00 – returned home once more – ate dinner then got back to it.
21:30 – after lots of swearing, sweating, shouting, groaning, aching, sawing, pushing, pulling and general all round effort – I had done it. My hacksawing skills were average but good enough, the result was good and the relief amazing. I had stared adversity in the face – screamed at it but eventually came up smelling of roses (I’m not looking that one up). Fortunately I was able to return all non used goods (including some of the goods I part used, then cleaned up, repackaged using original packaging and staples) – all in all a good experience and of course this brings me one step closer to being referred to as a Handyman.
Total money spent: £280
Time spent so far: 17 hours @ £10 per hour (as a rough guestimate of my time)
Other expenses: Petrol… £40
Total expenditure (including time and money) – approximately £500…