Household plumbing questions

[brooksmoses]

Why is it that old rubber gaskets, such as the ones that exist in the clean-water side of toilet plumbing, transmute into semi-permanent black ink when one touches them? And why is it that plumbing manufacturers continue to manufacture ones that do that?

Also, why is it that simple 10-minute plumbing jobs take an hour and a half?

And, finally, why do I seem to have three times as many metric wrenches as imperial ones and can never find the half-inch one, even though I actually have a nearly complete set of both in the drawer and two half-inch ones?

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I use 13 mm on 1/2 inch nuts. Works pretty well.