As I mentioned on the air last week, I've been sober for over a year now. And since then I've found that working in my yard is a great escape and the way to release stress. Unfortunately for my wife, I live by the Mythbusters mantra: If something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing.

Fenech Pictures
Fenech Pictures
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Before my parents moved to Florida, the plumbing that sends water back to the pool from the filter had failed. My dad is brilliant when it comes to fixing things. He always thinks of things from a practical point of view and comes up with a genius, yet simple fix. He decided to bypass the return system altogether and just run a big hose straight from the filter to the pool. It was a perfect solution for what would have cost thousands to tear out all the concrete to find the underground structural failure.

Fenech Pictures
Fenech Pictures
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Taking that a step further, I used an old plastic waterfall from our previous house and started thinking about a way to incorporate that with the return feed from the filter, yet still have a pipe hidden under the waterfall for silent water circulation.

My good friend Rick suggested cutting just one section of concrete and using the existing returns. His idea paid off when we cut a 5 inch gap out of the concrete to run the pipe I had buried into the pool. Of all three outlets in the pool, we ended up working on one that was definitely the problem. The original pipe feeling that outlet had snapped, but it was also connected to a "T". We replaced the faulty pipe and got not one, but two of the returns working. We know we can get the third working eventually, but I'm on a deadline.

Now that I've had some fun playing with PVC, on top of the two returns, I was able to also plumb the waterfall and our new water slide! It's actually our current playset slide, but I came up with an easy way to move it to the pool in the summer and back to the playset in the fall! I never knew I could pull something like this off, but then again, it's easy when you're not drunk all the time! Next up? New kitchen counters!

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