What is it about stepping in water when you’re wearing socks?

One moment, your foot’s dry and toasty. The next, you’ve got a cold tongue working its way up between your toes.

Yuck.

It’s even worse when you’re standing in front of the kitchen sink. A puddle right there can only mean one thing: leaky plumbing.

Sure enough, when I crouched down to take a look under the sink a few days ago, I saw the telltale signs. A box of dishwasher soap tabs melted into a single aqua-blue blob. A roll of paper towels swollen to three times its normal size — or, as my daughter likes to say, “On steroids!” And, in the back of the cabinet, a fine little puddle, complete with tokens of another unhappy surprise: waterlogged mouse droppings.

The mice would live to fight another day. The more pressing issue was finding – and stopping – the leak.

I pulled everything out of the cabinet. I threw away the ruined things. I obsessively cleaned the other things. Lysol and baby wipes were my weapons of choice.

Then I grabbed a flashlight, stuck my head in, and tried to replicate the problem.

This wasn’t very hard to do. All it took was turning the faucet.

The water supply lines weren’t leaking. The drain pipes weren’t leaking. The sink drain wasn’t leaking.

That narrowed it down to a single suspect: the garbage disposer.

Sure enough, when I managed to thread my head, python-like, through the tangle of pipes and hoses, I spotted the leak, an irregular hole about the size of an M & M in the back of the disposer.

I was puzzled. A hole in the disposer? That seemed unlikely. So I turned to the internet, my best friend when it comes to these unfamiliar home repairs.

I learned that the cast-iron “grinding chamber” of this particular model was prone to rusting through after a few years.

I was all set to start cursing the penny-pinching, outsourcing so-and-sos at the company that made the disposer, but then I remembered that I’d gotten more than ten years of use out of the thing. And that I’d bought it myself. I’d selected one of the cheap ones, when I could have bought a more expensive stainless steel model.

Ten years of use is pretty darn good. Not great, but better than expected. I didn’t waste another moment cursing the manufacturer.

What happened next, though, was extremely unusual. At least for me.

The repair went smoothly.

I didn’t have to drive all over creation to find a replacement disposer. My local plumbing supply house had the one I wanted – and, mirabile dictu, at a lower price than the big box store.

I didn’t have to run out in the middle of the job for tools or supplies. I already had everything I needed.

I even found a helpful online video that showed me what to expect.

The old disposer came out without a struggle. The electrical wiring was perfectly good and reusable. The new disposer wasn’t missing any of its parts. The instructions that came with it were clearly written and well illustrated.

True, it’s not a lot of fun to replace a disposer. It’s one of those projects that no one really notices unless you screw it up. You’re either working on your back under a sink, half in the kitchen cabinet and half out, or else kneeling and hunched over like Quasimodo. There’s the hassle of electrical wiring, which always gives me the willies, no matter how many safety precautions I take.

The repair went so well that I even replaced the balky on/off switch above the backsplash, since the power was already off at the breaker panel. That went fine, too.

Once the new disposer was all buttoned up, I tested it. It gargled gently and purred. Nothing leaked underneath. Water went down the drain and disappeared, never to be seen again, just as it was supposed to.

And then…

You’re probably waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was, too. A humiliating little disaster would be completely in keeping with this column. And with my experience.

Look, I know it’s a lot more interesting to read about repairs gone terribly, terribly wrong. They’re a specialty of mine. If you’re truly starved for an Olshan repair gone bad, check out the last pages of the May 2010 issue of Fine Homebuilding magazine, where you can read about a real doozy.

But today, I just wanted to write about a home repair that went well. Not easily, but well.

It’s all about celebrating the small victories.

This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 26 August 2010

For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com