“I joined last fall, so I’ve been volunteering for roughly more than a year. I came to the Tool Library one time for an open house and my wife was quite impressed with it. I was looking for a place where I could donate my wood working tools into a common space and we could do projects and I could go there instead of doing them in my basement. It plays to my strengths here, I know a little about a lot of things. I’ve done house wiring, house plumbing, duct work, dry walling, framing, roofing so… I’m not an expert in anything but I know enough! The thing I’m strongest at is house wiring.
In my old house, the plumbing was cast iron pipes, which has one great advantage – it’s very quiet. But it weighs a TON. So in order to re-plumb the house, I had to cut all the cast iron out. So, how to get rid of all of this cast iron piping? Well, I rented a chain cutter to cut the piping. It turns out that I couldn’t carry a section of more than about 3 feet long because it was so heavy! So starting at the roof, I cut the pipe every 3 feet, all the way to the basement. I got new ABS piping and over a few days, I dry fit everything (which means I cut it, fit it, but I don’t glue anything), because I’m worried I’m going to make a mistake. So I had dry fitted the whole house right to the roof and hadn’t glued a single thing. I was quite nervous about gluing it because it’s a bit tricky. I kept procrastinating and during all this time, we didn’t have any plumbing in the house… well one night, I was in the market drinking with friends and I came home at about 10 at night and just glued the whole house up! I lost my fear! Just needed a little liquid courage. Everything went in the right place and it worked perfectly!”