One Major Cluster F$%#

It is never a good thing to begin a post as titled above. Ever. 

Things were moving along swimmingly in the bathroom until I attempted to remedy an issue with the bath downspout. You see, the spout had always had a little play in it. I surmised that whoever had installed the spout had left too much of the threaded nipple protruding from the deck, whereby the spout bottomed out on the threads and hence could not tighten down all the way to clamp against the tub deck.

I only guessed this to be the case because one critical bit of information here is that, like most shower and tub plumbing (unlike a sink) the plumbing is hidden in the wall and in this case under this teak deck. Now my suspicion was actually not a good thing in this scenario because there would be no way for me to back down the nipple without access to it from under the deck.  

The photo above, taken from under the bathroom sink, will better illustrate the issue about nipple height that I am trying to convey.

The nipple (i.e. the two sided threaded spout pipe) is threaded for a stop nut on the underside of the sink, while the top part has larger threads that screw into the spout. The protrusion of the pipe (nipple) is determined by the nut underneath.

Ok, so I started to fiddle with this spout and saw that I could actually still turn it, so I did. A full spin. It tightened everything up. La la la la la. Everything seemed fine until I tried to turn on the water. 

Nothing. No water. What? 

I reversed course (literally), unscrewed the spout and took it off entirely. To my horror, the nipple was moving around freely. There is no nut under the deck holding it in place (as a matter of fact, that is why the above picture has that string and nut in place, otherwise there is nothing to keep that pipe from dropping into the impenetrable fortress that is the teak deck. 

So maybe not an impenetrable fortress -that deck, but only accessible by going through the wall behind that dresser in the bedroom. Not the worst, but not the best either. 

I think what happened is this. When I screwed the spout another full circle, I must have crimped the water lines. So far there is no evidence of a leak and once I untwisted the spout, I was able to get the water to run (although I only turned it on the smallest bit). 

My plan is to cut a large enough hole in the drywall to crawl into the space under the tub deck. I am praying that whoever installed the spout was having a lazy ass day and lost the nut and went ahead with the janky install anyway and not that there was some larger plumbing layout issue that caused this "creative" install. We shall see. 

I have been procrastinating this cut a hole in the wall endeavor by focusing first on finishing up the block printed shades that are to go in here. I just finished printing the third panel today and will be able to start sewing as soon as the ink is really dry.

Peace and Love and p.s. yes I did move that fiddle fig tree back up to my bedroom but more on that later.