Trials of a home plumbing project or “Patience with Nature”

Home plumbing projects are partly about fixing leaks and partly about learning humility in the face of nature.
Nature is the universal intelligence that guides all of the activities that mankind does not.
As a human and training-on-the job home plumber, I frequently build certain expectations as to how things should work.

When I force fit a piece of plastic PEX tubing between two slip connector fittings, I expect the connections not to leak. The laws of nature say that hydro static pressure will always find the weakest connection and spray water all over the bathroom. When this happens, I am disappointed.

I create a stopgap pipe cap from a pipe adapter and several small disks of rubber and plastic.  I throw in some O-rings for good measure. I expect the whole assembly to be a pretty good temporary substitute for a pipe cap. When the water pressure blows right past my homemade plug, I am disappointed.

I expect that solder should flow if I carefully spread soldering paste on parts, heat them with a propane torch for a reasonable amount of time, and apply solder. When the solder doesn’t flow the results looks more like the surface of the moon.     When this happens, I am disappointed.

After enough disappointments like these, I begin to realize that nature requires a deeper, more mindful understanding of exactly what I’m working with and how they can not work as I expect.

In short, I cannot say “This is surely good enough” and expect it to work. The plumbing industry provides solutions that ARE good enough, matter of fact better than good enough. I need to think through the problems and use the correct solutions …or I will be disappointed.

Patience with nature. I will never outsmart it.