Cold vs. Hot

Well, it's been one helluva few days here at Casa Iaco. Just when everything was quiet and peaceful....all water hell breaks loose.

A pipe. A simple pipe and it's 45 degree angled turn. It all came loose, spreading a $500 wave of water-turned-ice in the garage, and quite a bit of the basement floor (the basement being our family room and bathroom). Thankfully, the carpet stayed dry for the most part.

I was sitting yesterday afternoon, minding my own beezwax, when this horrific noise came from the laundry room area (shared with the hot water heater and furnace). I had just turned the dryer on about 10 minutes before and thought that was it, but upon further investigation, it was coming from the hot water heater area. Water slowly pooled on the laundry room floor. I made a quick call to Paul, who was at work, and told him to get home ASAP, which he did (he's only a couple minutes away, which worked out well!).

He shut off the water, thus ending the loud noise, and started making phone calls. We thought it might be the hot water heater so we called the warranty company (it has a 12 year warranty and is about 10 years old) and got things squared away with them, then we called Home Depot to arrange the switch--old one for a new one. He then called his friend, Ken, who's a genius at fixing things. Ken came out and, with the help of Paul's uncle Conrad and me, we determined that it was not the hot water heater but a leaky pipe. After some drywall digging and investigating, it was a simple pipe that had come loose from its socket. Or something like that.

Ken and Paul attempted to temporarily stop the problem, but weren't successful, so the water stayed off all night. This morning, we called a plumber (one that Paul's used before) but were told they couldn't come out until later in the day. GREAT.

Finally, in the 5 o'clock hour, the guy called and was on his way. He fixed the problem in less than an hour and checked everything out, finally pronouncing it all safe and sound. SO...we once again have water.

Now, a few hours after he left, we have HOT water. I like that.

And we're out $500. I don't like that.

But we have hot water, and for that, I'm grateful.