the Price of Plumbers

We had a disaster: while I was away, the lead pipe under the sink pulled loose, and hot water sprayed out for a couple hours. When my wife called me, she got the water turned off and I came home; we called a plumber shortly after to fix the immediate problem.

The plumber came promptly and saw that we had plastic lead pipes under the sink (in fact, I had installed the offender). He said that the nuts on the end can let the collar slip up, and the pipe can come undone. He replaced it with a braided stainless steel hose, which he said should be practically permanent. He charged us for under an hour of labor and parts, which came to about $100 total. Then all that was left to us was the arduous task of removing the water and drying the floor to avoid mold - at which we were successful.

Big point - if you're going to do the work yourself, and you're not overly knowledgeable, prepare to have things go wrong now and then that the pros will have to fix for you. That's what happened to me here: my plumbing job let go, flooded my basement and kitchen, and an experienced plumber could point to the problem and the solution immediately. Live and learn.

Also, we got our plumber by asking our realtor, who was from the neighborhood, whom she would recommend; that worked well for us in this case, though not in others.