Torching the Toilet as Time Ticks

“IT’S ON FIRE!”

That’s Leah screaming from the room next to me, while I just sit here and try to come up with slightly moronic things to say like “That’s OK honey. Just keep going.” I’m hiding because I really can’t take the stress of all of this.

I have to jump on a bus to DC in a few hours and right now the water to the house is shut off. It’s a toilet removal gone bad. Let me start from the beginning.

As we continue to remodel the basement, my job today was to yank the toilet and sink out of the little half bath. Only problem is that unlike your fancy, updated toilet, ours doesn’t have a shut off valve that works or a little flexible hose that delivers the water to the commode.

Nope, ours has copper pipes that run from the wall right to the basin. Earlier in the day, I had to cut the pipe and removed the toilet. Only then did I realized that the valve I bought wouldn’t work.

Tick tock. The bussing hour approaches. We jumped into the car and rushed to the home improvement store to pick up some new supplies. I probably asked Leah what time it was on at least four occasions. She remained calm. I was jittery.

We got a valve that you solder or “sweat” on to the copper nub that is now protruding from the wall. We also got a little heat resistant blanket. We’ve tried this whole soldering thing before and you remember how well that worked out. But we remained confident.
I got the torch lit and Leah prepped the area with the flux. Then I gave it a go, but to be honest I panicked. I cut the heat too early meaning the solder didn’t melt and create a seal. What I did do was annoy Leah. That made me even more jittery or is that jitterier.

Anyway, after I told her she was right. I lit torch again, handed it too her and got the hell out of dodge. Meaning I stepped out of the half bath and turned my back to what she was doing.

That’s when she screamed that she caught the heat resistant blanket on fire. The blanket was wrapped around the other copper pipe connections and the wood paneling on the wall. But unlike me, Leah stuck with it. Melted the solder. Sealed the valve. Saved the day. And for awhile relished the victory.

She couldn’t savor it too much because the clock was still ticking and she wanted me to remove the sink. At least the sink had shut off valves. Just as Leah was complaining that whoever put this in was too lazy to update the toilet too, I was removing the cleaning supplies in the cupboard below the sink.

That’s where I found a toilet shut off valve identical to the one we raced to the store to get and a little flexible hose that would connect to the basin.

Damn. She was right. They were too lazy.