Last week my son decided to flush paper towels down the toilet. Why did he do that, you ask. I do not know. I don't ask those questions anymore. Questions like why couldn't you just throw the paper towels in the garbage can that sits next to the toilet? or Why do you have to break the soap up into teeny tiny pieces in the shower? Or, Why did you think it was a good idea to hang from the towel rack?

Those will forever be some of the great unanswered mysteries. Of course the toilet clogged and my son tried to unclog it himself, by repeatedly flushing the handle. By the time I was called into the bathroom the water was spilling over the rim. I grabbed the plunger and went to work. I have learned how to unclog toilets over the years out of necessity. My boys have tried to flush all manner of things down the toilet. Frugal Fu can commiserate and offers a complete tutorial on how to unclog your toilet. Ending with:

That's it! I have removed a sub sandwich, a washcloth, and an action figure from our toilet using this approach, as well as the more natural clogs. (Yes, really!) I heartily suggest it, as it has saved me at least $775 in plumber costs.

Over the years my husband and I, which really means my husband works while I watch, have become more daring in what we attempt to do with plumbing. My husband recently took a bathroom from roughed in to the finished plumbing. Home Improvement Ninja writes:

Knowing what you are doing is powerful mojo because plumbers, like predatory animals, can sense fear and will rip your wallet out of your ass if you show any weakness. Anyway, here are some tips I picked up along the way (from people who are good at it, or from trial and error).

While I wouldn't go quite that far in describing any of the people we have hired to work in our house (I save those feelings for the people who work on our cars) It does always make sense to educate yourself about what is involved in the jobs that you want to hire out. Often it does take longer than you think it would, which translates into more per hour. And if the person who are working in your house have a crew, they may have the overhead of paying them and their health insurance. Fifties House writes about their adventure in plumbing, trying to unclog a sink drain. They took the entire sink apart.:

By the time we discovered this, it’s 7:30pm. No Home Depot or Lowes stores within 30 minutes drive time close later than 8pm. There are no other open hardware stores in the area that I know of. All I need is an 1.25″x8″ threaded sink tailpiece pipe. This is annoying. By the way, her Shop Vac idea for getting out the monster pipe clog worked.

The next post. Whoops:

Apparently the P-trap that I bought, the nuts and compression fittings that came with it, and the old “waste pipe” and nut on it were all crap. When I assembled everything, there were leaks where the nuts and compression fittings held things together. We gave up and called someone who does this for a living.

We have had the same thing happen to us over the years. The silver lining is that after calling the professionals for a job that was over our heads, we learned how to do whatever the job was. Lestercat agrees:

Enough knowledge was transferred in the process that we now know enough to really take care of our plumbing (or just enough to be dangerous...). When it comes time to rough-in when we get to the upstairs bathroom, we'll probably be able to do it ourselves.

Home is a Process is also part of this exclusive club of people who bite off more than they can chew.

We’re still not very good at knowing our own limits, because we bought this place, and in spite of the fact that we really needed a place to live, we proceeded to tear the place down to the studs. Then, when the house was nothing but bare studs, we jacked the center wall up, installed a few beams, and ripped out more studs.

As someonewho is still living without a real kitchen, I understand.  Completely.

When she isn't writing about her life at Notes from the Trenches, Chris is trying to save her house from a century of neglect and bad taste. She can also be found blogging about home improvement and design issues atDIY This 'N That