big things

Sorry about the recent radio silence, folks. Things have been unusually hectic in the past couple of weeks, as our water heater decided to die in the same weekend the heating fan/motor stopped working. Or at least, we noticed it wasn’t working.

We had stayed for a night while doing some work, and discovered the hard way that we couldnt take a hot shower. Or stay even remotely warm throughout the night. Couple that with planning a big anniversary party, my new office location, and a couple other things that escape me currently. Things have been a little tense.

About the water heater, it turns out that the thermostat in the lower element crapped out, resulting in firing the temperature up to the max. This killed both the element and the thermostat, running at 100% for god knows how long. We drained out the whole tank into the sump pump, which we also discovered was dumping water back into the house. Awesome.

The water coming out of that tank was brown and sludgy from gods knows what. Totally gross. We tried to fix the broken parts by getting replacements at home depot. Naturally, they didnt have the element we needed. Since plumbing supply places, like vanity stores, tiles store, and pretty much every other place we needed to go over the past couple of months are only open M-F 9-4*, we had to order the damned thing online. It came in the mail much later than we needed, but luckily Jess’ dad was able to find one for the following weekend. We swapped out the part and then realized that part of the problem was the wiring going into the heater. Even with the new parts it did not work. Troubleshooting involved switching the elements, and we determined that the wiring was bad. The cables also suspiciously went through a locked box marked “Mass Electric”.

So now another problem on our hands. We dont know whats in the sketchy box, but we’re convinced it is the cause of all the problems. Call the electric guys, nobody knows whats up. Apparently Mass Electric went out of business some time ago. So, nobody to call. Our current electric providers send a senior member over the following week, and hes says to just rip it out of the wall, which I do, then rewire, but thats another story.

After about an hour and a half of the repair, I go into the basement and discover a leak. We had just filled the tank and the pressure was spurting water out of the new element. Tighten it a bit, the water leak gets worse. What the hell. Drain the tank again. Pump puts water in the house again. There is now a river in the basement. Apparently this new element is not going to fly. Jess calls to schedule a new water tank to be delivered the next week.

I’m just going to stop now before this gets ugly.