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Look! It's hot water! From the tap!
May. 1st, 2006 08:52 pmWell, we at last have hot water. The shower I took the day it was installed was the best one I've ever had in my life!
Now we're playing catch-up on things that were just too much to do when there was no water, like mopping the floor, getting all the laundry done (the plumber hooked up the washer and dryer while he was at it) and slowly getting the house in better order.
You don't think of it, but even something simple like wiping a shelf with a damp sponge becomes a total chore when you don't have water, and you can only numb your hands with the cold for so long before you just start doing the bare minimum you can get away with. Worse, there are some really dirty jobs to do that we kept putting off just because it was so hard to clean up!
One thing that was fairly humorous was the hot water heater saga. I think I had mentioned that the hot water heater was going to need to be replaced. I was looking at tankless ones for several reasons. The alcove the tank is in, which is only accessible from outside, is poorly insulated, and if we had a few days of extra-cold weather, we'd be running the risk of a problem if the pipes froze. Further, even if we wrapped the tank and pipes, with that set-up, it would run more than average. With the tankless, it gets triggered by water flowing through it--no water, it doesn't go on.
So I looked around on line and I found a decent one that wasn't drastically more expensive than a regular one and asked the plumber if he had ever installed one.
He said no, he hadn't, but he was very interested. Our plumber's name is Paul, and given that I could find a full installation manual for our model right on line and that I had already seen that he did meticulous work, I was very comfortable with letting him install it. I did not know until now that many plumbers can do natural gas work--lines that must be sealed are lines that must be sealed, be they PVC, cast iron, or what. He'd already checked out the lines and said they looked to be decent, checked all the fittings, so we'd gone ahead and turned the gas on and the company tested and all was well.
So I went online and showed him the model, and with a few mouse-clicks, found it at Lowes in Bridgeport, much to his amusement. So we had agreed he would pick it up pending my hearing from the carpenter, and get it installed.
Since it would be at least a few weeks for the carpenter, I let Paul know and he scheduled the installation. It went smoothly, but the heater wouldn't light-- it turned out the gas pressure was way down. We made arrangements for him to return the day after so I could get the gas company in first, and he and his helper headed out.
I called the gas company, and they came out right away because low pressure could be caused by something as serious as an underground leak, but happily, it was just a blockage in the line going to the water heater. Worst-case scenario would have been a short length of line needed to be replaced, so I called Paul and let him know so that he'd be prepared to do it if necessary.
Even better, it just needed to be blown out--since the gas hadn't been used for nearly two years, it had just gotten a bit cruddy in the line and wasn't a big deal. And by the end of the day, I had my washer, my dryer, and blessed hot water!
Paul liked the heater so much that he's going to get the same kind when his dies, and the carpenter is dying to see it. It's really neat--instead of a massive tank, it's a roughly three by two foot box that hangs on the wall. And the hot water flows until you're ready for it to stop! No more having to wait for a shower because someone else just took one!
I wonder if I should charge admission to see it?
Now we're playing catch-up on things that were just too much to do when there was no water, like mopping the floor, getting all the laundry done (the plumber hooked up the washer and dryer while he was at it) and slowly getting the house in better order.
You don't think of it, but even something simple like wiping a shelf with a damp sponge becomes a total chore when you don't have water, and you can only numb your hands with the cold for so long before you just start doing the bare minimum you can get away with. Worse, there are some really dirty jobs to do that we kept putting off just because it was so hard to clean up!
One thing that was fairly humorous was the hot water heater saga. I think I had mentioned that the hot water heater was going to need to be replaced. I was looking at tankless ones for several reasons. The alcove the tank is in, which is only accessible from outside, is poorly insulated, and if we had a few days of extra-cold weather, we'd be running the risk of a problem if the pipes froze. Further, even if we wrapped the tank and pipes, with that set-up, it would run more than average. With the tankless, it gets triggered by water flowing through it--no water, it doesn't go on.
So I looked around on line and I found a decent one that wasn't drastically more expensive than a regular one and asked the plumber if he had ever installed one.
He said no, he hadn't, but he was very interested. Our plumber's name is Paul, and given that I could find a full installation manual for our model right on line and that I had already seen that he did meticulous work, I was very comfortable with letting him install it. I did not know until now that many plumbers can do natural gas work--lines that must be sealed are lines that must be sealed, be they PVC, cast iron, or what. He'd already checked out the lines and said they looked to be decent, checked all the fittings, so we'd gone ahead and turned the gas on and the company tested and all was well.
So I went online and showed him the model, and with a few mouse-clicks, found it at Lowes in Bridgeport, much to his amusement. So we had agreed he would pick it up pending my hearing from the carpenter, and get it installed.
Since it would be at least a few weeks for the carpenter, I let Paul know and he scheduled the installation. It went smoothly, but the heater wouldn't light-- it turned out the gas pressure was way down. We made arrangements for him to return the day after so I could get the gas company in first, and he and his helper headed out.
I called the gas company, and they came out right away because low pressure could be caused by something as serious as an underground leak, but happily, it was just a blockage in the line going to the water heater. Worst-case scenario would have been a short length of line needed to be replaced, so I called Paul and let him know so that he'd be prepared to do it if necessary.
Even better, it just needed to be blown out--since the gas hadn't been used for nearly two years, it had just gotten a bit cruddy in the line and wasn't a big deal. And by the end of the day, I had my washer, my dryer, and blessed hot water!
Paul liked the heater so much that he's going to get the same kind when his dies, and the carpenter is dying to see it. It's really neat--instead of a massive tank, it's a roughly three by two foot box that hangs on the wall. And the hot water flows until you're ready for it to stop! No more having to wait for a shower because someone else just took one!
I wonder if I should charge admission to see it?
