A while back, I scheduled an appointment to get my living room heat fixed. It seemed to be on a part time plan as in part of the time it worked and part of the time it did not. It turned out it was the thermostat. The thermostat would think it was 70 degrees when it was really 55 so the electrician replaced it and life was good--for four hours when I went into the bathroom to do a load of laundry and saw a puddle on the floor in front of my hot water heater. SERIOUSLY?! A friend who has HVAC experience/background installed my hot water heater for me so I had no idea who I was even supposed to call to have it repaired. HVAC guy? Plumber? Someone else? So I called my parents and asked them. BTW this was also the day after I had to somewhat unexpectedly get a new car because mine was going to cost more than it was worth to pass inspection. Anyway, they gave me someone to call so I called said someone, but she didn't have anyone available that day and wasn't sure she was really the right person for me to call. So I called my parents again--who were trying to get their raking and cleaning done before they had company the next day and my constant calls were not helping. I made a bunch of calls-it was only 3:00 so I figured someone might still be open. No luck. I finally got ahold of someone who said he could call me back on Monday. Did I mention this was all taking place on a Wednesday--as in the Wednesday before Thanksgiving--yeah, I know, I'm way behind on blogging. I found some old paperwork and found out part of the hot water heater was under warranty, made a phone call and they said they'd ship me what they thought was the broken part, but they would not pay for someone to install it--did I mention I'm NOT handy. So even with the part, I was still going to need a plumber. That night I boiled water to do my dishes. Well, you know it was almost Thanksgiving so might as well do like the Pilgrims did. The next day I figured there'd be some hot water left when I went to take a shower--GE had told me to turn the hot water off so it wouldn't leak any more. Boy was I wrong! That may have been the coldest shower I've ever taken. Friday I took a shower at my parents' house since I was Black Friday shopping with my mom. The husband finally got ahold of a plumber who could come out on Saturday for an extra fee or on Monday. Well, I don't know about your job, but in my job you are NOT allowed to take the day off after a holiday weekend and hubs can't really do it either. My parents were going out of town that day and I'm not really one to ask a friend to come sit and wait--plus most of my friends work. I figured we'd suffer a few more days, but my husband just wanted hot water back so he agreed to pay the extra fee. To make a long story not quite as long, for what we paid we could have gotten a new hot water heater. The part that I knew was broken was broken and so was the expansion tank--I think it was full, but the parts were NOT expensive. It's the darn labor. I'm in the wrong profession! I have to work a whole week to make what we paid that plumber for two-three hours and that included him driving to Home Depot to buy a part. I will say one good thing, while my husband was waiting for the plumber, I was getting my car inspected and getting an oil change and because it took so long (in their opinion not mine, I thought it was a normal amount of time), they gave me a HUGE discount. By the time the weekend was over, I was certainly happy to have hot water, heat, and a car that passed inspection. Speaking of cars, I never told you about the car that hit my house and drove off, did I? I'll spare you that story for now except to say a few weeks before all this went down some random person (I wasn't home, a neighbor saw it), hit my house and didn't report it. Thankfully, the damage wasn't huge, more of an annoyance because I had to spend money to have it fixed. I'd so much rather have put that money to traveling--or apparently, saving for a hot water heater part.
Have a good night blogland!
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