Why Aren't You Doing The Plumbing, Too?

Last night, Ariane asked me "So why don't you feel like you can do the plumbing, too?"  She said that with every other aspect of the bathroom remodel, whatever I didn't know, I just learned how to do it and went along my merry way.  If I couldn't figure something out, I'd research it until I felt comfortable and then I'd move forward with it.  I'd even planned to hire an electrician but after some coercion from friends, I've decided to take that on as well.  I've even decided that I can replace the main breaker box!

So why is it that I still feel like I can't do the plumbing?   My response was this: electrical is like math.  There is one answer.  It's either right, or it's wrong.  Plumbing is more like poetry explication to me.  It seems like there are about 1000 ways to screw it up and have a different answer or way of doing things with it!  Even if it seems right to you and actually works well, in 5-10 years when there's a leak, you know that it actually wasn't 100% right. 

New electrical panel

But electricity doesn't do that, really.  If it's done right, it'll spark or short or trip immediately when you turn on the power.  Oh yeah -- it'll let you know if you did it wrong. Then you can do it again until you get it right! 

With plumbing, you could solder some copper on and think you covered it all when in fact you missed a tiny little spot on the underside of that union.  It's fine for awhile, but when the pressure starts really flowing ... it's gonna leak.  Slowly, slowly, slowly ... until you notice a bulge in the ceiling below!  Yuck.

That's why I feel OK with hiring and paying a qualified, experienced plumber to do his work.  He knows what he's doing and he knows that he has to do it right.  As long as the plumber is an honest, hard-working person, then he's good.  Sure there are worthless "plumbers" who want to charge you $60 to push the button on the pilot light, but we don't have to hire them. 

I'll gladly pay someone to just explain that poem to me.  Yuck.