Sh*t Design of the Week - Spring Loaded Sink Plugs
From the archives of 'Why in God's Name did they make this and foist it on an unsuspecting public?!' The first column featuring modern inventions that give me the screaming sh*ts!
Plugging Up
Let the record show, I like plugs. A lot!
A good plug will stop water leaking out of your bath or sink. I like their very simple design. I love how they do what they do without complaint, need for any maintenance or special cleaning.
They’ve been around since the original owner-builder, Noah, installed a vanity unit on his Ark, so, why tamper with an extremely well proven design?
Because you are an idiot with far too much time on your hands? Or a plumber desperate to milk the non-plumbing consumer?
Whatever.
So, here, Ladies and Gentlemen, is my first contender for Sh*t Design of the week… the spring-loaded sink plug.
Yeah, my life has been completely inadequate without these things
Then It Stopped Working
Usually, your bog-standard rubber plug will last, oh, I don’t know, two or three lifetimes (if not left to dry out in the Queensland sun).
No wonder manufacturers are keen to see them go the way of the dodo.
Enter the mechanical plug!
And this one stopped working last weekend when Nell pressed it in to fill the sink, then afterwards tried pressing it again to release it and drain the water.
It was completely jammed.
No amount of fiddling, swearing or spells would get it to pop back up again.
YouTube videos suggested adding more pressure or twisting the top to free the plug.
I added so much pressure I’m not sure how the vanity unit didn’t get pushed through the floor?
Desperate, I soaked it overnight with WD40. This didn’t work either (and, frankly, I’m just as shocked as you!)
So, the next morning, I made the sigh I reserve for these occasions and pulled the sink apart.
I can do this because I have a lot of useful tools, such as my faithful, Rigid pipe wrench:
They also made some interesting ads back in the day which left quite an impression on we young apprentices:
And these old Clipsal calendars featuring Warren Wirejerker were pretty popular too:
Anyway, after a few niggly dramas getting everything apart, then cleaning up the mess, I found these objects blocking the mechanism:
The earring was a genuine surprise but, from experience, every bathroom sink I’ve ever taken apart has a clump of manky hair and a rusty bobby pin jammed in it.
I suspect even sinks used only by bald men have them too; probably put there as part of the plumbers’ sink installation process?
Anyway, once the hair and other gunk had been removed,0 the spring mechanism popped open.
I tested it two or three hundred times and it worked fine. It even kept working after I’d put everything back together again (again, colour me shocked!)
Later, as I cleaned my tools, I idly wondered if I should find the patent for this plug and track down the designer and have him castrated so he can’t breed more idiots, or simply pelt him to pulp with a truckload of rubber plugs as a warning to other designers?
In the end I decided not to bother with either option and decided to write this whingeing post to an uncaring universe instead.
Still, it’s bought my blood pressure down, so stay tuned for more… Sh*t Designs!
Gb