DanLog the ramblings of Daniel Pettit

Well I fell another notch today on Streetmattress.com. Vogon3, another Londoner, passed me up to move into second place. Four days ago Smart Set reached 1000 street mattresses.

Ordered a Litter Robot for Trouble (who else?). Her new low allergy food is making her kitty snickers smell something fierce - almost radioactive. So I figured one of these high tech litter boxes would solve the problem. I was originally planning on Litter Free, something we saw at the OC Fair several years ago. It had this synthetic litter and would run through a wash and flush cycle after the cat used the box. It is currently off the market has been for a few years, though many people love the darn thing.

Anyway, I’m sure you all have seen the Litter Maid that was the obvious next choice, it has that automatic rake that cleans up the beach after the tourists go home. Well after reading peoples opinions on the net, unreliable messy cleanups, picture the rake slicing instead of scooping (get the idea). That didn’t sound like a good plan to me and I wouldn’t even be the one cleaning it. So I searched for options.

The Litter Robot [ watch the video ]was the only other auto box out there. It looks like a BrundleFly’s transport pod. Too bad it doesn’t actually transport the waste to your garbage can after use. It had good reviews, a 30 day return policy and a 18 month warranty. So I ordered one. It requires a clumping litter, which we were not using. So we started off with the new litter in Trouble’s old box. Well the first time she used the stuff ( Scoop Away ) I noticed these grey clumps on the floor in the bathroom, they were clumps of clumped litter (meaning urine soaked dirt more or less) there was a bread crumb trail exiting the bathroom. The kicker was a clump glued half way up the backside of our sofa. This stuff has to go. Back to the internet to find something that will track less. We also noted that she had clumps of litter hardened between her rear toes. Found a unscented low tracking with charcoal that was supposed to be really good at odor control.

Lauren thought that Trouble could handle the change so I took her old box out of the house and put it on the patio and dumped the newest litter into the Litter Robot now located in the old boxes’s spot. My mistake was doing this while Trouble was in the kitchen watching me take her old box outside. She always pays a visit to the loo after dinner so when the time came all eyes were on her. She went to the bathroom and quickly exited, too soon to have gone into the Robot. She headed straight for the art room and gazed at her old box siting out of reach. I went over and herded her back into the bathroom. I raked inside the Robot a bit to show her where the “stuff” was. I left her alone. I also closed the room to the art room in case she decided that close was good enough. She took to using the Robot right quickly for #1 and #2. At this point the Litter Robot was not plugged in. I would manually run the cleaning cycle once I noticed she’d used it. I made sure that she couldn’t enter the bathroom while the Litter Robot was doing it’s thing. Did this for a few days. If she was downstairs when I turned it on she would be trying to get into the room to see what the noise was.

Friday morning I decide today would be the day to switch it onto auto. I tried Thursday night, but didn’t go for food at dinner time so her usual trip was canceled. I wanted to witness the cycle to insure it was calibrated correctly. So I just switched it on and went to work. There was no way to tell if she had used it when I came home. So I figured dinner time tonight would be the test. Well she went about her usual routine, but she when she visited the bathroom she came right back out. She went out to the art room again (I had since moved the old box inside the garage out of sight) I went and herded her again into the bathroom. Again in and out. It was obvious that at some point in the day she had used it and seen it in action. I’m sure she was horrified at the observation. Thinking to herself - my god I could have been killed, I barely made it out alive!

Well I tried my best to get her to use it. I kept raking and she’d come she what was going on, look around, I’d step out and she would look inside the robot, to the side and then chicken out. Did this 3 or 4 times. Finally she stepped inside with her front paws, then just barely fit her rear paws inside. Then she started a #2 and plop plop the first fell inside then two fell outside onto the robots steps with a thud. That thud scared her and she somehow spun around and ran out of the bathroom for her dear life. I was peaking around the corner watching this whole thing and I have no idea how she turned and exited the robot so quickly, she simply went from crapping facing inward to a flying headfirst exit instantaneously.

Not the greatest thing but she did go back inside, we’ll see what happens overnight, I turn off the robot. Half expecting a mess somewhere on the carpet Saturday morning I look around quickly and nothing - good sign. I check the box and she has not used it. I start looking around a bit harder and I see a water stain on the ceiling (see plumbing story) turns out she didn’t do that but Lauren noticed that the small patch of carpet outside the bathroom was wet. Well that seals the deal. Don’t have the time or will to see if we can get her to not be afraid of the Litter Robot, so return it I will.

I was already very close to returning it because it just wasn’t controlling the odor well enough. In fact the smell was not bad at all with the new litter, it was only after I’d activate the Litter Robot that it got bad. You see the kitty snickers were buried until the Robot does it’s thing then just the snicker and any random litter clingon gets deposited into the collection drawer. Well there is no seal around the entire perimeter where the globe and the base meet. Odor control was mentioned as one of their selling points I think I got snookered on that one, It very well might be better than just a regular box, but I think that will depend on how well the cat does in burying. If they can come up with a seal or some type of trapdoor for the collection drawer, a bigger drawer would be an improvement as well, they’d have a bomber product. Just as long as your cat can get over the cat eating monster aspect of the whole thing. I read on the net some people have modified it use a bigger drawer. I thought about my own modifications, but given her fear of it, it’s just too expensive to take that chance on and when in hell would I find the time to engineer a trapdoor for the thing.

So I can recommend it with some reservations, just depends on your personal requirements.

Like I didn’t have enough things on my plate. This morning I spotted a water stain on the living room wall where it meets the ceiling. It is directly under the upstairs bathroom, no surprize there. At first I was thinking that Trouble must have pee’d on the floor up there, but that would have taken a case worth of beer to create that much liquid to soak through the floor and into the ceiling/wall and she isn’t a drinker.

The floor was dry around the toilet, I even pulled up the carpet - all dry. The wall was dry under the sink, no visible leaks. I figure it is probably the hot water supply line angle stop since it has always had a build up of rust and some old rust stain runs on the wall. I’ve never noticed any moisture so I was never really concerned about fixing it even though I knew it should be replaced. But in my book with plumbing anyway it’s let sleeping dogs lie.

I get ready to start tearing out the wall and discover I don’t have a drywall demo saw, off to Home Depot. The wall is very tough sawing, turns out it is two layers of sheetrock so that explains the toughness. I cut out a small section near the hot water line. I can see that there is massive corrosion. How can that be? I have copper pipes. I figure it just must be built up from the valve rusting as the water slowly ran along the outside of the pipe over time, but I need a better look. I remove more wall so I can see all sides and get my hands inside.

Well now it makes sense, I’m enjoying the fruits of some idiot plumber from the past. Most likely Denny, the previous owner. Someone used galvinized pipe for the stub out. This is not looking good. I’m very sure that the pipe will disintegrate as soon as I put a wrench to it to unscrew it from the copper elbow in the wall. I turn off the water to the house and drain some water out of the hot lines. I put my wrench on the valve body and give a twist. Yep the pipe shears off about half way down it’s length in a shreaded crumbling mess. Well I think I could be screwed now.

I can’t turn the water back on until the pipe is repaired. I now need to remove the soldered copper elbow from inside the wall and then install a new copper elbow and new copper stub out. Soldering copper pipes is not my strong suit. In fact at work I really try to avoid it at all costs on supply lines I’d rather have the pros do it. I’ve had many a leaky solder joints. I tried and failed running new copper into my darkroom 12 years ago and have been gun shy ever since. In fact while I had success before that time, since I’ve only dared to try it once about six months ago and it worked out. However, this one is inside the wall which is behind the vanity cabinet, just to make it more of a challenge. I will give it a try, after all at this point I have nothing to loose, other than setting the house on fire (not afraid of that). Okay the elbow is nailed to a support board, so I need to detach it first. Well the nails are bent over behind the board just to make it more difficult. They are just not budging. I decide to cut off the pipe below the fitting and will just run out the line lower on the wall. Damn can’t use a tubing cutter because of a strategically placed stud. Okay back to the nails. I work a screwdriver behind the fitting and work out some slack. Finally I can get my pry bar behind the fitting and pry away but my screwdriver is sacrificed in the process to the plumbing gods as it plummets out of sight into the abyss behind the wall. I get one nail all the way out. I work on the other side but just don’t have room to pry after a certain point because of that stud. The head is far enough out now to get my vise-grips on it so I work the nail back and forth until it breaks off.

Off to Home Depot for solder, flux, pipe, angle stop, flame guard, pipe cleaner, elbow fitting. I need to desolder the the old fitting off, quickly and easily it comes off, hey things are starting to look good. I then solder the stub out pipe to the elbow before crawling back under the sink. I get Lauren to hold a flash light for me. Then I solder the elbow onto the supply line. Done - looks good, I have a good feeling about this. I attach the new valve and get Lauren to stand watch for gushers as I go turn the water back on. Success just a small seep from the angle stop which is cured with another twist of my wrench. All of my solder joints are dry. I declare the pipe fixed and lug my tools away to the garage. Just the wall to repair now, which will wait for another day.