I see a fair number of wacky installations in this line of work. And, here is one more.
A client called and the complaint was, it was hard for this very elderly (90+) woman to operate her hose bib. She said it was hard to turn the knob to turn on the hose, and thus water her garden. So here is the pic they sent me:
Now again, I do not do plumbing so this was all a mystery to me. I figured they had installed a main pipe shutoff valve instead of a spigot(which, it turns out, was close). So I figured, maybe I can just get a shutoff valve with a longer handle that this lady can manage with her minimal hand strength. That way I could just remove and replace and use the existing pipe adaptors.
So I wandered down the plumbing aisle at Home Depot and there was a guy standing there and I showed him the pic. And that’s when I was told, this was not a water shutoff valve, it was a GAS shutoff valve. Yeesh.
I have this little theory about some jobs, where things are just bizarre: the theory is, the guy made things work, not properly, but just barely, utilizing parts he had “in the truck.”
So I went round and round with the Home Depot guy about other shutoff valves and then he said, “Let’s go look in the garden section.” And lo and behold, he found a hose bib extension doohickey that had a little 90 degree turn shutoff arm. All I had to do was put this in between the hose and the beastly thing. And here it is:
So now the lady can turn that black doodad easy peasy. Nice and secure with no leaks. Hats off to that kid on staff at Home Depot!
