For some reason, we always seem to have an abundance of duct tape around except when we need it. Does anyone else have this problem? I think it could be that my teenage daughter steals it to make wallets, purses, jewelry, Halloween costumes (yes, she actually made an entire Halloween costume out of just duct tape.
Well, we had a leak under the sink, and I really would like to wait until we have more than one thing to fix before we call the plumber in and I need to do dishes today. We found the leak two days ago in the kitchen sink, so yesterday when I was at the Dollar Tree, I picked up a cheap roll of duct tape, besides, what do I have to lose? It only cost $1.00. I was a little leery about whether this cheaper brand of duct tape would work, but I tried it anyway.
I went 2 inches above and began taping the pipe all the way to 2 inches below the leak. I taped over it several times to make sure the edges of the tape had no wrinkles for water to come through on the ends or over the leak. My first test...it worked.
I began loading the dishwasher and dumped a pan of water down the sink...DARN IT! It didn't work! What now? I needed dishes done, and I couldn't even do them by hand with this sink like this. What now??
Well where I put the tape, there were clamps that were over the hose, so I decided to take all of the duct tape off and see what the problem actually was. It took a while to get all of the duct tape off. I had put several layers, but when I finally got the clamps off, I found that one had gone right through the rubber connector of the hose. This is what happens when someone (the person who installed the dishwasher a month and a half ago) tries to tighten them too much. Without the clamps, I decided to try putting the duct tape right over the rubber connector. I covered the whole thing with duct tape being careful not to leave any gaps.
I put the clamps back on over the duct tape and found there was just a very small leak through the duct tape. I taped over that and PRESTO! It worked, or so I thought.
Well, there still is a little drip, but I can handle a little drip until I can get a plumber in to fix it. I put a pan down there and that does the trick for now. Maybe if I had used better duct tape it would have worked completely, but as for now, I am happy with the temporary results for today.
Why am I waiting to call a plumber? Because I am going to first try and find the piece at the hardware store to fix it myself...that will be a later blog.
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