Tighten Your Nuts, Not Mine

Originally published in ECOS in March.

Dear Old House Doctor,

While digging under my kitchen sink for some unsavory household chemicals, I noticed that the particle board floor in the cabinet was wet and sagging. Where in the world is this moisture coming from, and more importantly, am I doomed?

Sagging in Hillcrest

Dear Sagging,
There’s no doubt about it: you’re doomed.
Whether you believe in God or The Big Bubble, Allah or Murray The Kinky Monkey, medical science has proved that we’re all doomed. Sure, with a program of healthy eating and exercise, you might live to be ninety or a hundred. But if that involves nursing homes, Ensure cocktails and colostomy bags, wouldn’t it be better to burn out at sixty while experimenting with trendy chemical amusements and younger lovers while bowling with explosives?
I know that’s the way I intend to go.
As to your sink base, most moisture problems are caused by leaking drains. Don’t knock into them while digging around for the roach spray; drains are sensitive and easily offended.
Here’s what you do.
Fill your sink with an inch of water after you empty the cabinet space below. Have towels ready to soak up what leaks (don’t use good towels). Then pull the basket and watch where the water comes out. Chances are, you need to hand-tighten (I said HAND tighten; no wrenches) the compression nuts on your P-trap (the s-shaped drain tube) under your sink. Do this GENTLY until no water comes from the drain.
If, on the other hand, your drain isn’t leaking, turn on the faucet at full force and crawl further into the base with your flashlight. Be careful not to go too far! There’s a huge gulf back there, and if you fall into it, you’ll be trapped in the lacteenth dimension with large-breasted women with no sex drive. Don’t want to go there!
Look up below the faucet and see if that’s what’s leaking. If it is, you’ll have to buy a ‘faucet wrench,’ a device you’ll not be able to use for anything else but tightening your faucet compression nuts (oh my! don’t tighten MINE!).
Check all connections with the appliances on: dishwasher, disposal, and bong-water isomerization co-conversion unit, if you have one, you stoner. If you don’t find the leak do it all again. Put six inches of water into your sink before you drain it. Sometimes your underground drains are so constricted that it takes a larger amount of water to cause the backup.
Okay, you found the leak and tightened the connections. What do you do about the mass of wet particle board?
Knock it out and remove it. Use a dust mask; that crap is nasty and likely loaded with mold and formeldahyde. If the framing below is intact, use ¼´plywood to replace it, but be warned!
WARNING! WARNING! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!
You must use two pieces, as one cannot be put in the cabinet retroactively. It just won’t fit. Make sure to match the two pieces where a piece of framework falls below it.
See how simple all that was? God, I don’t know how your species survives.
I need a drink.

Got an old house question, concern, or want to learn more about Murray the Kinky Monkey? Write me at this blog or at king.oldhousedoctor@gmail.com and I’ll fill your head with wicked thoughts.