Our hot water heater died a horrible, fiery death today. Are we never going to get rid of this house, without replacing every square inch of it?!? Of course the hot water heater died during Alan's morning shower, leaving a full dishwasher of dirty dishes/utensils, a full hamper of dirty clothes and an unwashed wife (98% of the time, I take night baths, with bubbles - he takes morning showers).
I suspected something might be going wrong because Thursday night, I burned my foot. When drawing my bath, I let the hot water tap run for several seconds to get warm, then turn on the cold tap, stick my foot underneath the stream and if it's warm enough, close the drain and add the bubbles. The other night when I did this, however, in exactly the same way as always, the water was scalding hot and burned my foot. It didn't blister it, I didn't suffer actual damage, but it did hurt and I had to uber-moisturize. Alan seemed to think (and I didn't blame him for his conclusion) that it was operator error, so we thought no more of it until today, when he emerged post-shower to report that the water was never more than lukewarm.
7 or 8 years ago, I had this issue where the water heater would turn itself off, and I had to push this little red reset button. Once I'd done that, it might be okay for 2 days or 2 weeks or 2 hours before I had to reset it again. Then my dad replaced something in it - a heating element, maybe? and I haven't had to reset it since. So today when Alan said it wasn't working, I thought I'd do the reset thing so I went outside (the water heater is in a utility room built off the garage). I pushed the button and had an instant result: sparks and flame! I was all, EEK! an electrical fire! And water conducts electricity, what should I do?!? Scream and let Alan handle it, of course. Which he did, masterfully, or I wouldn't be blogging, you'd be reading about me in the newspaper.
Once the flames died down, I called my mom and my two friends who are local (I have more than 2 friends, but not many of them live nearby) to get recommendations as to who to call for this sort of thing. No one was home, so I phoned The Boss. "My hot water heater just died a sparkly, unpleasant sort of death. If that happened to you, who would you call to fix it?" The Boss reminded me that he and I had each had individual plans to take a mini-break this weekend+Monday, and that we'd both canceled plans because we're afraid this one work project might go completely sideways come Monday.
"See? See!?! If you were at the Ritz and I was at Callaway, neither of us would have to worry about this!"
"Well, I might HAVE to go now, since I can't bathe here. I can't come to work next week, either, 'cause I'll be stinky."
"Have you ever been stinky? I mean, seriously, can that actually happen to you? You take an early lunch to go shopping for a new shirt if you spill two drops of Diet Coke on yourself; I think stinking is a level you've never truly encountered."
"And I want to keep it that way! So who do I call?"
Alan wound up calling Home Depot, in accordance with The Boss's suggestion; I'd rather have used a local, independent outfit but since no one was available to give us a referral, that was the best we could do. They can't get here until Monday, though, so I'm going to have to heat water on the stove tonight in order to avoid an ice-cold bath. I'm not looking forward to this, but at the same time, I'm fixated upon it: just the fact of knowing that I can't have my usual bubble bath in a straightforward way is making me long for one.
During Alan's discussion with the Home Depot rep, more proof was revealed that I am either the luckiest unlucky person, or the unluckiest lucky person in the world, because hot water heaters? Are warrantied for either 6, 9 or 12 years, depending on how much you want to pay. My water heater is the original one which was installed when the house was built in 1972, 36 years ago, and so while I don't really have grounds to gripe that it's died, I can't believe it couldn't hold on 2 or 3 more months until the house is sold, when it would have been someone else's problem. GAH!
Am I starting to smell bad, or did the puppeh just fart?
I suspected something might be going wrong because Thursday night, I burned my foot. When drawing my bath, I let the hot water tap run for several seconds to get warm, then turn on the cold tap, stick my foot underneath the stream and if it's warm enough, close the drain and add the bubbles. The other night when I did this, however, in exactly the same way as always, the water was scalding hot and burned my foot. It didn't blister it, I didn't suffer actual damage, but it did hurt and I had to uber-moisturize. Alan seemed to think (and I didn't blame him for his conclusion) that it was operator error, so we thought no more of it until today, when he emerged post-shower to report that the water was never more than lukewarm.
7 or 8 years ago, I had this issue where the water heater would turn itself off, and I had to push this little red reset button. Once I'd done that, it might be okay for 2 days or 2 weeks or 2 hours before I had to reset it again. Then my dad replaced something in it - a heating element, maybe? and I haven't had to reset it since. So today when Alan said it wasn't working, I thought I'd do the reset thing so I went outside (the water heater is in a utility room built off the garage). I pushed the button and had an instant result: sparks and flame! I was all, EEK! an electrical fire! And water conducts electricity, what should I do?!? Scream and let Alan handle it, of course. Which he did, masterfully, or I wouldn't be blogging, you'd be reading about me in the newspaper.
Once the flames died down, I called my mom and my two friends who are local (I have more than 2 friends, but not many of them live nearby) to get recommendations as to who to call for this sort of thing. No one was home, so I phoned The Boss. "My hot water heater just died a sparkly, unpleasant sort of death. If that happened to you, who would you call to fix it?" The Boss reminded me that he and I had each had individual plans to take a mini-break this weekend+Monday, and that we'd both canceled plans because we're afraid this one work project might go completely sideways come Monday.
"See? See!?! If you were at the Ritz and I was at Callaway, neither of us would have to worry about this!"
"Well, I might HAVE to go now, since I can't bathe here. I can't come to work next week, either, 'cause I'll be stinky."
"Have you ever been stinky? I mean, seriously, can that actually happen to you? You take an early lunch to go shopping for a new shirt if you spill two drops of Diet Coke on yourself; I think stinking is a level you've never truly encountered."
"And I want to keep it that way! So who do I call?"
Alan wound up calling Home Depot, in accordance with The Boss's suggestion; I'd rather have used a local, independent outfit but since no one was available to give us a referral, that was the best we could do. They can't get here until Monday, though, so I'm going to have to heat water on the stove tonight in order to avoid an ice-cold bath. I'm not looking forward to this, but at the same time, I'm fixated upon it: just the fact of knowing that I can't have my usual bubble bath in a straightforward way is making me long for one.
During Alan's discussion with the Home Depot rep, more proof was revealed that I am either the luckiest unlucky person, or the unluckiest lucky person in the world, because hot water heaters? Are warrantied for either 6, 9 or 12 years, depending on how much you want to pay. My water heater is the original one which was installed when the house was built in 1972, 36 years ago, and so while I don't really have grounds to gripe that it's died, I can't believe it couldn't hold on 2 or 3 more months until the house is sold, when it would have been someone else's problem. GAH!
Am I starting to smell bad, or did the puppeh just fart?
2 Comments:
I am so sorry to hear about the water heater's death, and even more sorry that I wasn't available to offer some sort of advice (I would have had to suggest Home Depot, in any event). As you know, when ours died, we still had Dad and a truck so went to HD, bought a new one, and came home and installed it ourselves. Unfortunately (in SO MANY ways), that's no longer an option for any of us.
love,
mom
By
Anonymous, at 8:12 AM
Oh, it was definitely the puppy! ;)
By
A Margarita, at 8:48 AM
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