One Week On

      ...Having hot and cold running water in the kitchen remains a delight and a marvel.  Even better, the new faucet has a longer spout, allowing it to swivel over the center of the bowls of the double sink, or almost to the center.  The old one was a stubby, apartment-sized unit that could be frustrating -- all the more so since it was apparently about half-blocked by lime scale when I first moved in!

      Most of Indiana has very hard water.  While this means our plumbing is sometimes "self-healing," it also means narrow channels will close up over time -- and the structural properties of lime scale are nowhere near as good as those of copper or galvanized iron water pipe.  When a "healed" leak fails, it can be dramatic.

      While the old spout hadn't done anything spectacular, it had started leaking along its length early in the pandemic (but after our furnace had to be replaced) and I'd made a series of temporary repairs by wrapping it with layers of self-amalgamating tape.  This was only partially successful.  So I was living with a less than ideal setup long before it start leaking down into the basement.  This has served to increase my pleasure at having an ordinary, modern faucet on the kitchen sink.