Lisa: Stop me before I do something stupid.

If you read this entry from a few weeks ago, you know that we have been having a few issues with a leaking water softener and the lack of a drain in the laundry room of our new house. Well, last week the awesome Jeff came and helped haul our new washer and dryer down the stairs and into the furnace room (alas, we "have bought the mansion of a love, but not yet possess'd it"), and then assisted Blake in dismantling and emptying the water softener and dragging it back up the stairs and out to the garage. Of course, the copper pipes that used to lead to the water softener still leak, so we currently have a bucket hanging from the pipe ends to catch the drips. Every few hours we have to go down and empty the bucket, or it overflows and mixes with the cement dust raised by the hammer Blake is using to break through the cement that was inexplicably used to fill in the old drain pipe we found under the linoleum.

The current plan is to buy a pipe cutter and some compression caps (to avoid the whole blowtorch/soldering process), cut off the pipes where they connect to the main water pipes, and cap off the ends. Is there some reason we should not do this? Please stop me before I do irreparable damage to my plumbing system.

Update: Thanks for nothing, Internet. This was indeed a stupid thing to do. The pipes can't just be cut off, they have to be connected together, bypassing the water softener. Also, we tried the soldering thing and I was right to be apprehensive--it was too hard for us. Anyway, a call to Action Plumbing and $225 later, our pipes look great and work perfectly.

For the next entry in the laundry room saga, click here.