On the weekend I spent some time putting water fed solar panels up on our roof. I thought 50 feet of flexible piping would be enough, but that only covered getting the water to and from the low garage roof, and not taking care of the piping also needed to get the water from the pool to the pump and filter.
Yesterday after work I bought more piping from a pool & hot tub store and then went to the hardware store to buy more connectors than I needed so that I wouldn’t have to make another trip.
Then I made another trip to the hardware store… and then another. I finally had all the proper connection pieces, but only after assembling 3 pieces together to replace one piece that was there previously. Without going into details, the small pump currently attached to the pool, which is too small to pump water up onto the garage roof, is attached by parts unique to the pump and so the transition from the pool to the new pump was not as simple as I thought it would be.
So, I continued my tradition of always having to go to the hardware store more than once whenever I do any kind of handy work. I’m glad it’s a short drive, but when I have to go a third time, it’s really frustrating. I ended up re-hooking up the old pump after dark, and will put everything together later this week, but probably not until the weekend, with a very busy after school schedule until then.
‘Measure twice cut once’ is a phrase you often here tradespeople say. Well, it seems mine should be ‘measure twice, visit the hardware store once’… but no matter how much I measure, how much I think I’ve prepared, I end up not realizing I needed another item, or buying the wrong item, or running into an unforeseen issue. Chalk up one each for those reasons last night.
The day I am able to visit a hardware store just once, and complete a full repair of project will be a day of celebration for me. But last night was not that night. Last night it took 3 trips to the hardware store. And now the task that I had hoped to be completed must wait longer to be done (again).
