Shoveling snow can be hard work. Shoveling 8 inches of snow is most likely hard work. Shoveling 8 inches of snow while it is still a blizzard condition is definately hard work. So what are the two best ways to make shoveling that snow easier? Other than lifting weights for months ahead of time in order to be physically fit enough to shovel your driveway, that is?

First, shovel the end of your driveway before the back side of it. While the shadows on your driveway and the time of day can certainly change this around, you will generally find that the snow at the end of your driveway is heavier than the snow at the back side. The dirt and grime that the snow plows shove into the snow, coupled with anybody pulling into or out of your driveway and packing it down, means that shoveling the end of the driveway is going to be more difficult than shoveling the lighter and cleaner snow that is away from the road. If you shovel the heavier snow first, then you will not be as tired when you are done because you will still have the energy to move that snow. If you save the heaviest snow for last, then you will have a much harder time as fatigue sets in and your workload increases.

Second, shovel the snow from left to right near the end of your driveway. I tend to push the snow that the plows have thrown into the driveway to the end and then with the direction of traffic, so that I am leaving it on the shoulder at the end of my driveway and off to the side. If you shovel half of the snow to the left and half of the snow to the right, then the plow trucks will just throw that snow right back onto your driveway. If you leave it on the shoulder to the right side, then the plows will carry it away from your driveway and you will have less to shovel the next day. Another advantage to this strategy is that more of the dirt and salt from the road is left closer to the road, so you will not be leaving that detriment in your yard for the spring. The street sweepers will come and pick up more of it. Unfortunately, the plow is probably going to send quite a bit into your yard anyway, but every little bit helps.

A few weeks ago, we somehow put a pinhole in the top of our old faucet. I was out of town last weekend, so for the past two weeks we have gotten by with a faucet that was swaddled in duct tape in order to keep water from getting all over our kitchen.

This weekend, I replaced the faucet with a new one. The first order of business was to remove the old faucet and to measure the holes to make sure that I got one that fit. It turns out that I really did not need to do that, but it was good for peace of mind, anyway. I do not have a basin wrench, but there is enough room behind my sink to get by with regular wrenches and with robogrips. A basin wrench probably would have saved me about a half hour all told between removing the old sink and installing the new one, but I decided against purchasing one.

To remove the old faucet:

1. I shut off the hot and cold water valves leading up to the faucet. I needed the robogrips in order to get them closed enough that no water could pass through.
2. I cut the hose to the hand sprayer as the easiest way of uninstalling it.
3. Next, I needed to unhook the copper water leads between the faucet and the water supply. Unfortunately, the hot water lead had a few connections that I couldn’t bend in such a way that I could pull the faucet out of the hole, so I had to cut it at the base of the faucet. Luckily, I have done work with refridgerant coils in my brewing days and had a tool for just that purpose.
4. I was then able to remove the faucet by pulling the hoses through the hole so that everything was exposed.
5. Last, I had to unscrew the base for the hand sprayer and remove that.

My wife and I then took a trip to purchase a new faucet. I had one that I liked, and she had 3 or 4 that she liked. Since one of those was the one that I liked as well, we decided to go with it. We were a little worried that it would be too tall because of where our window sill sticks over the sink, but after installation we had a good ¹/₈” or so between the faucet and window sill. I also picked up some plumber’s putty and a soap dispenser, since we would not have a need for a hand sprayer and a soap dispenser would remove the need to keep a bottle of soap up on the sink.

Installing the new faucet was much easier than removing the old one:

1. Apply plumber’s putty to the inset on the faucet base. Line it up with the three holes in the sink, press it down, and then use a flat head screwdriver to remove the excess putty.
2. Set the faucet base onto the inset piece.

Ours fit right on top and had a groove to make sure that it was even.

3. Feed the hoses through the center hole and line the faucet up.
4. The next step is to screw the faucet into place from underneath. I had my wife hold the faucet in place up top to make sure that it was straight, since I do not have x-ray vision and could not see through my counter.
5. Our faucet uses stainless steel hoses, which proved much easier than the copper to line up and attach to the hot and cold water pipes.
6. Make sure that the faucet is turned off up top, and then open the water valves.
7. Before hooking the faucet itself up to the mixing hose, we had to run the hot and cold water to flush any gunk from the hoses out. The cold water hose didn’t have anything visible in it, but there was some black gunk in the hot water hose that came out within the first few seconds.
8. The last step for the faucet was to attach the mixing hose and the faucet hose. Everything was basically done at that point.
9. Since we had bought a soap dispense, we had to install that. It was a simple matter of screwing it in place, attaching the bottle, filling it, and putting the pump into place.

The only mishap that we had was that I somehow knocked the nut loose on the hot water valve, so it was leaking a little through the valve stem. Tightening up that nut fixed that problem, though.

So now, we have a brand new faucet! It took a few hours to remove the old one and install the new one, but it looks much better than the old one and so far it seems to work much better as well. I’ll write about that once I have had a chance to really put it through its paces, though.