O-Ring

“Can you change the water filter?”

That seems like a pretty benign request.

“The water is running slow and before I run the dish washer…” she said

Hmmm…

“Okay but I just changed it like four weeks ago” Anyway, who knows what’s going on, so I decided to change it. I just got a new order of filters. No big deal.

So I went downstairs and did the drill. We have a whole house inline filter that takes out the chlorine and any bad germs out of the water before sending the water to the rest of the house. Process is you shut off the water, bleed out the little bit of pressure and water between the two valves; you bleed it into a steel bucket I have down there for this job. You unscrew the canister and dump out the old filter and the water in the canister into the bucket. Insert the new filter, screw the canister back on, close the bleed valve and open the two inline valves. Some gurgling and air pressure sounds and you’re back online.

Usually when you screw the canister back on it’s fussy, you have to kinda align the filter and catch the threads and it stops turning just as it’s tight and ready to go. This time it wasn’t too bad, not as tight as usual.

Hmmm…oh well, whatever.

I closed the bleed valve and turned the inline valves on and water starts spraying out the side.

What the heck?!

Water off. Try this again.

I tried it a few times. No change. Still water spraying out.

I look inside and there’s a black o-ring.

Hmmm….

I fiddle with the o-ring. Take it off. Try. Put it on the male part of the coupling. Try. Fiddle with it some more.

Now I’m worried.

Nothing I could do was fixing the issue.

That’s it, call a plumber. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m a carpenter, not a plumber. So I franticly go upstairs and google “emergency plumber repair”. I call the number and give my info. Of course it’s 6:30pm on a Monday. This never happens at 10am on a weekday. They say they’ll have someone contact me after 7pm.

“No water. You all are gonna have to stay at a hotel.” I proclaim to the family while waiting for the plumbing people to call me back. There’s nothing I can do and if they can’t fix it tonight it will be at least tomorrow. And this is the only water supply for the house. And that supply is off.

A little after 7pm I get a call. Thank god. The guy on the other end of the line is Randy and he didn’t seem as worried as I was.

Randy: “Is there an o-ring?”

“Yea.” I replied

“I’d hate to charge you $130 bucks just to do this. There’s a groove you have to seat the ring into in the canister top.”

“Yea, but…”

“…the o-ring seems too big?” replied Randy

Jesus, this dude is reading my mind.

“You just gotta seat it in there. Use two hands. If it’s not working you can try some vaseline. Or you can go to Home Depot and get a new ring. It’s not something we’d have on our truck anyway. Give it a try and worst case call me back if you can’t do it.”

So me, the spouse and kids all fiddle with the o-ring. Damn thing is too big. After all these years my o-ring has worn itself out maybe and is all loose and sloppy. That’s kind of depressing.

“Ok, I’m going to Home Depot.” Everyone else headed out the door to find a house with working plumbing and I headed to the store.

I went to Home Depot and the guy looked at me like I was nuts.

“I don’t think we sell anything like that” but he pointed me towards aisle 44 where they sell the “wrenches n such for that sort of thing” pointing at the large wet, blue canister in my hands. None of the water treatment systems there looked like mine. But…they did have packages of o-rings; one looked too small, the other looked too big. I’ll go with too small.

And to hedge my bets I went to Lowe’s. Same deal. Package of too small and package of too big o-rings, each with a little tube of vaseline.

I went home and took my canister, and it’s old oversized loose o-ring, and tried to fit what seemed to be the closest of my “too small” o-rings into the groove. I lubed up the new spritely o-ring.

Man….it was not working.

I had goo all over my hands and a too small o-ring slithering around the top of my canister, mocking me. Maybe if I had an extra set of hands, but everyone was off enjoying modern plumbing at someone else’s house. Hmm….

On a whim I took my old, loose o-ring and lubricated it. Not really sure why this would work I slowly used my gooey hands to place it in the track.

What the hell?!

As I circled around the o-ring that was previously an inch too wide, joyfully slid into the groove and sat there happy as a clam in brackish water.

Seriously, what the hell?!

With skepticism I marched downstairs, inserted the new filter into the canister and screwed it on. Kinda tight to be honest but with one last revolve it was aligned and seated. Saying a tiny prayer to the person upstairs (god, not some actual person…’cause, as you know, everyone left to find a house with working plumbing) I closed the bleeder and opened the inline valves.

Voila!

Seems like it worked. [knock on wood]

So far I think it worked. I’ll check on it before bed and in the morning. I have no idea why vaseline was the trick to tightening up my o-ring but I’m glad it worked. And I’m only out about ten bucks for the o-rings I apparently didn’t need, but will hold on to.

On the down side I realized my metal bucket has a leak so all the water in the bucket leaked out onto the floor.

I still have no desire to be a plumber, but I’m grateful it’s fixed, whether I had to pay someone or not. Thank you Randy, wherever you are! I owe you one. And I should have tried the vaseline first.