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Jun. 3rd, 2009 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mereilinIt started innocently enough this morning when I went to dump some clean laundry on the bed to be folded. My husband informed me that there was no hot water and he couldn't get the pilot light under the tank to stay lit.
The tank is more than 10 years old and it's been looking a little drippy lately, so I just called the plumbers who installed the new boiler a couple of years ago. The dispatcher kindly said that it might only need minor repairs, but ballparked a full replacement around $1100.
Ouch.
I'm actually pretty proud of myself for not falling apart today. The equity line is there for home repairs, after all, and interest rates are still pretty low. The plumber arrived about 45 minutes later with an assistant who looked as if he were still in high school (maybe an intern from a tech school?), and it only took him a few minutes to ascertain that the tank was, in fact, tanked. In a manner of speaking.
He went off to pick up a replacement tank, leaving the assistant to clear a path to the work area and start disconnecting things. I went to the lumber store downtown to pick up some concrete blocks to put under the new water heater to keep it clear of the occasional basement flooding.
The cat, meanwhile, discovered the Mystical Portal to the Mysterious and Forbidden Backyard and entertained himself by exploring underneath the back porch. When I finally fished him out and brought him back indoors, he cried and scratched at door to the basement. Mystical portal, or barrier to the litter box? I didn't want to take any chance that it was the latter, so I slipped downstairs and scooped out the box. When I tried to open the door to let myself and the box into the kitchen, he slipped past me and bolted directly for the Forbidden Backyard.
I caught him before he made it under the porch -- he was so furious at being thwarted that he actually bit me! Not hard, but really quite emphatically. When I brought him back inside he used the litter box in the kitchen. I swear he "missed" on purpose!
Finally the plumber turned the water back on. Except there was no water. He checked and double checked, but there was a distinct lack of pressure coming from the water main. I called Public Works and they sent a couple of workers over to check it out -- I think they were so prompt because they assumed we'd snapped the gate valve behind the meter that actually belongs to the town. In the meantime, the plumber tried closing and opening our gate valve a couple of times and eventually did get some water to the house.
The long and the short of it is that we have antique galvanized iron pipe from the orinal 1895 infrastructure, and the shut-off valve at the curb has been obstructed. First thing tomorrow a crew is going to dig up the street to locate the valve, so they can shut it off and check the town-owned meter and gate valve in the basement. If the obstruction isn't there, it's probably inside the galvanized pipe, which is prone to closing itself off as it ages so that a half-inch pipe may actually have only enough clearance to poke a pencil through.
If it's the pipe, we have to pay a crew to dig it up and replace it with copper. Or live with crappy water pressure, assuming the pipe continues to hold.
I guess we'll see what tomorrow brings. I just want a shower!
The tank is more than 10 years old and it's been looking a little drippy lately, so I just called the plumbers who installed the new boiler a couple of years ago. The dispatcher kindly said that it might only need minor repairs, but ballparked a full replacement around $1100.
Ouch.
I'm actually pretty proud of myself for not falling apart today. The equity line is there for home repairs, after all, and interest rates are still pretty low. The plumber arrived about 45 minutes later with an assistant who looked as if he were still in high school (maybe an intern from a tech school?), and it only took him a few minutes to ascertain that the tank was, in fact, tanked. In a manner of speaking.
He went off to pick up a replacement tank, leaving the assistant to clear a path to the work area and start disconnecting things. I went to the lumber store downtown to pick up some concrete blocks to put under the new water heater to keep it clear of the occasional basement flooding.
The cat, meanwhile, discovered the Mystical Portal to the Mysterious and Forbidden Backyard and entertained himself by exploring underneath the back porch. When I finally fished him out and brought him back indoors, he cried and scratched at door to the basement. Mystical portal, or barrier to the litter box? I didn't want to take any chance that it was the latter, so I slipped downstairs and scooped out the box. When I tried to open the door to let myself and the box into the kitchen, he slipped past me and bolted directly for the Forbidden Backyard.
I caught him before he made it under the porch -- he was so furious at being thwarted that he actually bit me! Not hard, but really quite emphatically. When I brought him back inside he used the litter box in the kitchen. I swear he "missed" on purpose!
Finally the plumber turned the water back on. Except there was no water. He checked and double checked, but there was a distinct lack of pressure coming from the water main. I called Public Works and they sent a couple of workers over to check it out -- I think they were so prompt because they assumed we'd snapped the gate valve behind the meter that actually belongs to the town. In the meantime, the plumber tried closing and opening our gate valve a couple of times and eventually did get some water to the house.
The long and the short of it is that we have antique galvanized iron pipe from the orinal 1895 infrastructure, and the shut-off valve at the curb has been obstructed. First thing tomorrow a crew is going to dig up the street to locate the valve, so they can shut it off and check the town-owned meter and gate valve in the basement. If the obstruction isn't there, it's probably inside the galvanized pipe, which is prone to closing itself off as it ages so that a half-inch pipe may actually have only enough clearance to poke a pencil through.
If it's the pipe, we have to pay a crew to dig it up and replace it with copper. Or live with crappy water pressure, assuming the pipe continues to hold.
I guess we'll see what tomorrow brings. I just want a shower!
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Date: 2009-06-03 08:34 pm (UTC)My younger cat, Kitty (I know, I'm creative) always "misses" the litter box when she's angry at me.