Wednesday, August 29, 2007

The Joys of Home Ownership

Tuesday is one of my training days. Having a family and full time job means riding and training gets scheduled just like any other thing. I woke up Tuesday morning and on my way out the door to work, I admired our new indoor fountain. You know the type that has a stream of water that runs down and offers peaceful ambiance to your home. We just got it.







Oh, on Monday we called it our water heater.



Yep, I went to the Temple of Duckman - aka the garage, to get my bike and stuff to ride and I am met with 50 or so gallons of water in the floor and the water heater looking like a damn fountain. So Tuesday's training was pre-empted by cleaning up water and the closest I got to a bike was moving them out of the garage to get the old water heater out.



A trip to Lowes and $350 later and I have a shiny new unit ready to be installed. My buddy David was drafted (he picked the wrong day to stop by for a visit) and while Nancy got me a sandwich, we had the garage cleaned and the old water heater out pretty quick. With the new one in place and wired up, all I needed was to make one more trip for a couple of hoses and I am done. I had beaten the odds that say each project of this level requires at least three and no less than three trips to the home store. The first trip is for what you think you need. The second trip is for what you forgot or didn't know you'd need and the third trip is for the stuff you really need because all the **** you got on the second trip was wrong.

I was gonna do it in two. Or so I thought.

It seems that my fixtures on my house are from the Late Ming Dynasty and aren't compatible with anything made in the last century. The first hoses I got fit the heater but not the water pipes. The second pair of hoses I got (that were supposed to fit - thanks Lowes guy) didn't do it either. So at 9:00 last night I realized I'd be making that third trip and we'd be taking cold showers this morning.

Thankfully it has been so hot in the South lately that the water wasn't that cold and I now now there's some odds you just can't beat.

1 comment:

Mike Patterson said...

We need to invent the water heater flood protector. Set the water heater in a kiddie pool size container with water drain line running to the outside.