Why I’ll Never DIY Plumbing Again — And You Probably Shouldn’t Either

I’ll admit it—I thought I had this one.

Our bathtub drain was broken, and I figured, “How hard could it be?” I picked up the parts, watched a couple of YouTube videos, and felt confident I could handle a simple drain replacement. I even told my wife it’d be a quick afternoon project. (Famous last words, right?)

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t quick, and it definitely wasn’t simple.

After wrestling with the old parts and smearing on way too much plumber’s putty, I finally got everything put back together. It looked fine… but two days later, we noticed something very wrong—water was dripping through the basement ceiling and soaking into our daughter’s bedroom.

Panic mode.

I ran upstairs and checked the tub. Sure enough, the drain had completely separated. The plumber’s putty never fully set, and now the little DIY project that was supposed to save us money ended up costing nearly $2,000 in water damage and repairs.

Lesson painfully learned.

Thankfully, Legacy Plumbing came to the rescue. They were out the next day, quickly diagnosed the issue, properly installed the new drain, and even cut out the damaged drywall to help us get on the path to recovery.

And to top it all off? The plumber was kind enough to tell my wife it might have been a faulty part and not necessarily a me problem. I don’t know if he was just being nice, but I appreciated the save.

Here’s the deal:

Just because you can watch a how-to video doesn’t mean you should do it yourself—especially when it comes to plumbing. Water has a way of finding every little mistake, and the consequences are rarely small.

If I had just called Legacy Plumbing in the first place, I would’ve saved time, money, and one very wet ceiling.