Shark bites again.....

 7:48 am - Sunday - September 19th - Seal Rock, OR - 52° F, 100% humidity, wind 7 mph out of the south....partly cloudy as I write with a forecast high today of 60° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were somewhere east of Missoula heading east to the beet harvest in Sydney, Montana......↴

We were expecting rain Saturday, and that is what we received....

.....I had been saving a rainy day project for just such a day as this.....install two Sharkbite water shutoff valves on the hot and cold water lines under the kitchen sink.  The only internal water shutoff valves we have in the coach are for the hot and cold water for the Splendide washer/dryer, and the cold water line for the toilet.  The bathroom sink, kitchen sink, and shower have nothing of the sort, which is kind of a mystery to moi, but I have been determined to rectify that issue for a long time.  A couple of months ago when I installed the new kitchen faucet I decided to ordered a couple of those valves to install at a later date, so while TLE headed into Newport to shop, I set about to install the two valves, and be done before she returned....of course nothing is ever that easy.

As you will recall, back in March of 2020 I utilized Sharkbite fittings to install our new tankless water heater, and found them quite easy to use, so I ordered two 1/2" valves off Amazon assuming the copper lines under the sink were the same size.....why wouldn't they be?  I brought my pipe cutter into the coach and began to slowly sever the hot water line, and within a few minutes was ready to install the first 1/2" Sharkbite valve.....it would not slip onto the pipe.....wait, what?  As I examined the valve and copper tubing I realized it was 3/8", not 1/2".......doh!  This is not good, right?  I cannot turn on the water for anything in the coach, or there will be a flood under the kitchen sink, so I must solve this problem within a couple of hours.  I go back online to see if there is even such a thing as a 3/8" x 3/8" (both ends push to fit) Sharkbite valve, and there is no such animal.  I check many sources (Amazon, eBay, etc.), and they do not exist, so now I'm hoping I can find a 3/8" x 3/8" coupling at the local Ace Hardware store, and just reconnect the copper line I have just severed.....

The 1/2" Sharkbite shutoff valve

....TLE was home about 30 minutes later, so I hopped in the Beetle heading south to the Waldport Ace Hardware store to, hopefully, buy the needed 3/8" x 3/8" Sharkbite coupling.....frankly, I'm must hoping they have one in stock.  Fortunately for me they did have two in stock so I bought one ($13....ouch) and headed back home to undo my mistake.  The 3/8" coupling worked as it should, and my wife was a happy woman once again......

The Sharkbite 3/8" coupling is within the red circle

.....once order had been restored, and water service was restored to the coach I went online to do some more research.  Since no one apparently sells  the required 3/8" x 3/8" Sharbite water shutoff valve I search to see if I could find a 1/2" x 3/8" coupling, and what do you know, they do exist!!!  I can install two of them to get up to the 1/2" size pipe I need to install the the shutoff valve.  I still have 1/2" PEX tubing leftover from the tankless water heater install, so I'm set.  Once I'm sure my solution will work I will order two more of the reducer couplings and install them on the cold water side.

After all that unnecessary excitement on a Saturday I settled into my recliner to watch unlimited NCAAF college football.  My USC Trojans started slowly, but after a quarterback change scored 45 unanswered points to best the Washington State Cougars 45-14.

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