Leak Speak

I had just solved the problem of a frozen faucet valve by soaking the valve parts in a 50/50 solution of vinegar and water.  My bargain bidet was going to work out OK after all.  There was just one more thing to fix and this project of installing a bidet would be complete.

When I did the rough plumbing for the fixture some time back, I didn't pay close attention to which side I ran the hot and cold supply lines.  I do remember struggling a bit working in the tight space where the supply lines needed to run, so I probably had my eye more on running the 1/2" copper pipe as directly as possible.  At any rate, the pipes came up through the floor with the cold water on the left and the hot water on the right. It wasn't until I hooked the bidet up that I discovered this mistake.

I could have left it with the hot and cold reversed, but that would mean joining the world of reverse plumbing whenever entering the bidet closet, and who knows what other implications that would have. I decided I should do the job right, so I picked up a pair of flexible supply connectors at the hardware store and then proceeded to change out the ones I had just recently installed with the longer flexible ones that allowed me to cross the lines between the 1/2" copper and the faucet valve.

Then another setback.

I'm not sure how it happened, but in the course of changing out the supply connectors, the hot water shut off valve developed a leak.  It's possible that I had over-tightened the compression nut for the connector and this cracked the valve, but whatever the cause, the leak meant I would now have to replace the shut-off valve too.

The shut-off valve was soldered in place so I had to break out the propane torch again, heat up the solder joint and remove the valve.  The hardware store only had compression style fittings for the replacement and that was fine with me.  Once I cleaned up the 1/2" hot water supply line, installing the compression fitting was easy. 

Now with the valve replaced and the connector lines crossed to bring hot water to the left faucet valve and the cold water to the right,  we were ready to try out the bidet.