I Asked Gemini For Plumbing Help, And I’ve Never Felt Handier

Ryan Haines / Android Authority

When you move into a new apartment, you often play a game of landlord roulette. Sometimes, you’ll get a good one — a landlord with a reliable maintenance person who tackles requests quickly. Other times, you’ll get a lovely person who’s not quite ready for property management. They might respond to emergencies, but it takes forever to get a response whenever something small goes wrong. Then, when they do answer, they might try to fix the problem themselves, whether they know how to or not. I, unfortunately, have the latter.

So, when my bathroom sink began to leak like it was being tortured for information, I figured I had two options: Hope for the best from my landlord or learn a life skill and fix it for myself. I chose the latter but enlisted Gemini for some help along the way. Here’s how it went.

Measure twice, cut once

Ryan Haines / Android Authority

I’m not a plumber by trade. In fact, as a writer, I probably don’t give off “knows his way around a toolbox” vibes, no matter how much I enjoy assembling IKEA furniture. So, although I could tell my sink was leaking, I didn’t know where to go from there. I wasn’t sure if the leak was coming from the bowl itself or further down the pipe — all I knew was that I could hear a steady drip, which was probably not good for my cabinets.

So, before I turned to Gemini, I did the one thing I didn’t need technology for: I made the problem worse. I pulled out all of my bathroom cabinets, laid down a towel, and turned the sink on to see where the drips were coming from. I quickly realized that the leak was coming from where the sink basin meets the drain, and now it was time to call in the AI-powered cavalry — or, rather, I knew what to ask my Pixel 9 Pro.

I pulled out my phone, held the power key (programmed to launch Gemini), and asked, “What causes a sink drain to leak?” After all, I knew where the leak was coming from, but I didn’t know if the pipe had come loose, if a rubber seal had rotted, or if there was a clog somewhere along the way. As it turns out, any of those could have been possible solutions. Gemini’s response was to take the sink apart and see what looked out of place.

Uploading photos to Gemini is a lifesaver when I don’t know what I’m looking at.

But, being the willing plumbing apprentice that I guess I am, I obliged. I pulled the drain pipe out of the P-trap, careful not to spill the water in it, and then I asked Gemini for a bit more help. See, not only was my sink leaking, but the stopper arm that allows me to fill the sink with water had snapped off, too, so I was probably going to have to replace the entire setup. I snapped a picture of my current sink drain just to be sure and attached it to my Gemini prompt, asking, “How do I replace this?”

Gemini responded immediately, bringing up a series of instructions that involved everything from shutting off my water to loosening even more parts under my sink before I realized I still didn’t have the pieces I needed. So, I cut off Gemini’s explanation — something I’m very glad I can do since the launch of Gemini Live — and asked it to find me a replacement sink drain assembly that would fit my current sink. On top of that, it recommended I grab some plumber’s putty and a wrench, so I grabbed my coat and headed for Home Depot.

Gemini helps, but I still have to do the work

Ryan Haines / Android Authority

Upon my return from the hardware store, it was time to get to work. Although everything had been smooth sailing, I was less sure how Gemini would fare when I wanted step-by-step instructions. After all, it wouldn’t be able to lend a physical hand to let me know if I’d over-tightened a piece of my new drain assembly or if I needed to apply more putty to shore up the seal around the mouth of my drain. So, I asked it to pull up a YouTube video and search for the right steps in action via a Gemin extension before I tried to repeat them.

Now, with fresh, newfound confidence and a general understanding of what I had to do, I started to tear under my sink limb from limb. Alright, not quite that aggressive, but I did have to take apart the mostly plastic assembly, which might have cracked once or twice — but I’ll choose to blame a previous tenant. Either way, Gemini’s steps had yet to lead me astray. I removed the old assembly, caught all the water from the P-trap, and lined myself up for the replacement.

Then, for good measure, I typed out a question to ask Gemini just how much plumber’s putty I should use around the lip of the sink — I wanted to get it right, but I didn’t want to make a mess. After all, this is where my previous drain assembly had begun to fail, so it seemed like an important landing to stick (pun intended). Once again, Gemini had my answer: Roll the putty into about a half-inch log that’s just long enough to reach around the drain, and don’t be afraid to use too much rather than too little.

I asked Gemini questions in all different ways, and it had an answer every single time.

From there, I was on my own. Gemini had done everything possible to set me up for success, and now it was time to get my hands dirty. And, as it turns out, I’d made much ado about nothing. Swapping one drain assembly for another only took about ten minutes, and the only real challenge was aligning parts above and below the bowl when I couldn’t see what I was doing in both places at once. But then, I felt the threads of the drain connect to the pipe itself, and I knew my work was done. All that was left was to turn on the water and listen for an errant drip — a drip that never came.

Honestly, I have to give Gemini a lot of credit. I’ve taught myself to fix things around my apartment before, but I don’t think it’s ever been this simple. I asked questions verbally, typed them out, and even uploaded images along the way, and Gemini didn’t stumble once. Could I have asked it to hold a wrench while lining up the sink drain? No, Gemini doesn’t have hands, but I’m not sure my landlord would have been much more help, either. And, now that Gemini is the default assistant when I press the power key on either a Galaxy S25 or my trusty Pixel 9 Pro, it just might have won me over from Google Assistant. Maybe next time, I’ll use Apple Intelligence for my home improvement project, but it’s tough to argue with how well Gemini handled its opportunity.