It’s called a downspout for a reason…
As I may have already mentioned, the bloke who we bought our new house from liked to do his own DIY (well, I think he did – either that or he employed cowboys). His painting leaves a lot to be desired, as does his ability to do a job properly.

An example of this is his approach to tiling. Clearly he decided that taking the radiator off in the bathroom to tile behind it was too much hassle, and instead tiled around it, leaving bare plaster behind.

I only tell you this, so that you get a clear understanding of the slap dash approach that this imbecile adopted when it came to home improvements.

This week, I've had cause to remove the U-Bend under our Kitchen sink. Having cleared it out, I went to reconnect it to find that it wasn't particularly well attached to the outlet pipe. I say not particularly well attached, I think hanging on by a whisker might be more accurate. I also noticed that in order to get out of the house, the water needs to run uphill, such is the angle of the pipe. Even with a fairly basic understanding of science I know that despite water's many excellent qualities, a readiness to defy gravity is not one of them.

Sao this weekend, I now have to try and temporarily fix the plumbing beneath my kitchen sink, before tackling the problem of the upwards pipe at a later date. I wouldn't mind, but his approach to plumbing, like his approach to everything else in the house has been to bodge it in the most incompetent manner. How hard can it be to make a pipe flow downhill?

Every time I find something else he turned his hand to, a little piece of me dies inside, and another trip to Wickes inevitably follows. Give it twelve months and I’ll be a fully fledged DIY expert at this rate.

- posted by Paul @ 10:40 am