Thanks everyone. Now get this. Did you know that there is a 1/2" fitting and there is a 1/2" compressed fitting? And it takes 4 trips to the hardware store to get the truth about the matter? Interesting. My little valve happened to need the 1/2" compressed fitting. Funny thing is that it comes attached to the 20' flexable tubbing but not the 30" or the 10". And the 10" tubing did not come with 1/2 in fittings on both ends. Nor is there a nifty little metal object that will bring you down from 1/2 in to 1/2 in compressed. Now I could have wandered all around Tacoma searching through all the hardware stores for a piece that would connect the stupid thing in a reasonable manner but I opted to go with patching two 20' inches of flexable tubing together with a coupling that adds about another 2 inches to the tube which means that I now have a tube that is 42 inches long that needs to connect to pipes that are only 20 1/4 inches apart. Slightly amusing if I may say so. But I now have a new working water source that is not leaking and flooding my kitchen. I can now wash the dishes or a chicken without getting on my hands and knees and crawling in a cupboard to turn the water on...or use the bathtub. Anyway, it is done and it works and I snuck past the plumbing society. Woo Hoo.
Carrie

PS I apologize to any plumbers who may be members of this board. I am sure that if you have found us and come here regularly you must be a good person and therefore have not sold certain spiritual parts to certain unmentionable beings and probably most definately do not hang out with those who have. I am sorry if you felt that I have slighted you in any way by my stereotyping all plumbers as pawns of the aforementioned being...

Did you know my house could have blown up after a plumber turned the release valve on my oil tank and left my home with oil dripping from the tank and seeping underneath my furnace. That was scary. Unfortunately I couldn't do anything about it at the time because I was in a very bad mental place to begin with. Sigh. No, I do not like plumbers. I will do everything in my power to take care of the plumbing myself, thank you very much. If it wasn't for all the strange fitting sizes (which of course are totally unnecessary) plumbing would actually be rather easy (making plumbers unnecessary.)

<font color=green>But the implicit and usually unconscious bargain we make with ourselves is that, yes, we want to be healed, we want to be made whole, we're willing to go some distance, but we're not willing to question the fundamental assumptions upon which our way of life has been built, both personally and societally.--Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft