How Doctor Google cured my waterfall

Picture this. The sun is shining, there’s a loud symphony of cicadas, waves are crashing in the distance and sweat is burning my eyeballs.

No, I’m not at the beach. It’s 30 degrees outside and I’m up in the roof of our new home in Tauranga.

On a day like this, no-one wants to be outside. It’s too hot, let alone to be tortured by the sickening sauna that is a roof cavity.

I swear it must have been 50 degrees, but there was no way I was going to call a plumber.

‘‘I’ll fix it.’’

A few days ago my eldest kid, Mila, runs inside and calmly tells me that the house is crying. I ignore it as childish mumbo-jumbo, but then a few seconds later I hear the sound of running water. My house was crying.

When you imagine a water leak you don’t really imagine it coming from a pipe above your front door. No, this wasn’t that copper one we all see sticking out of the top of every home.

This wasn’t on the ground by the water mains. No, I’m two levels up and there is water pouring out of a pipe above my blimmin’ front door!

I had no idea. I was lost, intrigued, panicked.

This is our first home. Ours. And I needed to defend it with all my might. So I called Daddy. He didn’t answer. Next up, my brother. After a few minutes of frantic back and forth, speedy Googling and poking a torch up into the roof manhole, I found the problem. The trusty ol’ ‘‘not very trusty anymore’’ ballcock was leaking.

I have one of those hot water cylinders that has a tank of water sitting above it in the roof cavity. It is controlled by a ballcock like in your typical farmer’s trough.

Easy fix? Easy fix. Surely. Google: ‘‘How to fix a ballcock thingy’’. ‘‘Babe, you should get a plumber.’’ Apparently our new waterfall installation was making the wife a bit anxious.

‘‘No, I’ll go figure it out. She’ll be right.’’

Ladder, light and a few ‘‘watch out for the boogey man’’ messages from the kids and I’m in the roof cavity.

God it’s hot.

Within a few seconds I’m clammy all over. One minute in and I’m dripping sweat. One and a half minutes in and I’m now pooling more water than this leak. Maybe I should have called a plumber.

Nah, bugger that. My first home, I’m a homeowner. I’m finally allowed to hammer nails into the walls. I can have pets, chop down trees and fix those pesky broken house bits.

Have I ever done plumbing stuff before? No, but Google has.

I bend the ballcock arm down to stop the water filling the tank. That waterfall above my front door was from an overflow pipe. Thank bloody god I had one of them.

Dr Google tells me to change the washer but, instead, I’ll grab a whole new ballcock unit. The other one is 40 years old.

I slide down the ladder with broken part in hand to a slightly impressed wife.

Maybe she thought I looked like one of those sweaty adult film plumber guys that knock on the door in the middle of the day.

As I head down the hallway to the plumbing shop I catch a glimpse of my exhausted self in the bathroom mirror.

Definitely no porno plumber vibes there.

How did I find the plumbing store? Google of course.

On the second trip up to my private ceiling sauna I brought the 7 year old, Mila, up with me. She wants to be my assistant.

Great. Now everything up in this crammed space will take three times as long. I’ll lose an extra 6kg in perspiration and probably fall through the pink batts as I pass out.

But it was worth it. I taught the kid what I was fixing. She was impressed, if not slightly creeped out by all the sweat I was dripping into our clean water.

I explained how the ballcock worked, why we were replacing it and what all that spooky stuff you find in the roof space actually was. I was DIY Dadding and she was eating up every word.

I sounded like a plumbing pro. ‘‘Thanks Dad.’’

I thought to myself, ‘don’t thank me, thank Dr Google.’

We had done it.

Who needs a plumber? Google it and do it yourself! GIADIY.

I mean it’s not like I’ve been up there everyday since to check my workmanship wasn’t leaking or anything.

I love it up there. Honest.

On the second trip to my private ceiling sauna I brought the 7-year-old, Mila, up with me. She wants to be my assistant. Great. Now everything up in this crammed space will take three times as long.