ANOTHER NEW THING

Well, this one is not so exciting to me as the Featherweight was, but, boy, was it necessary!

A while ago as we were eating our dinner we heard water running.  No taps were on, so this was a puzzle.  I went to investigate and found a pipe sticking out from the laundry room wall at the back, no faucet on it.  Water was pouring from the pipe into an open black plastic pipe, a drain.  It went on and on, no pause.  What in the world was going on?

There didn't seem to be a way to turn off the fast running water that was being totally wasted.  We used the shut off valve for the condo, out in front.  Of course, that meant we had no water available.  For the rest of that day we turned on the water when we needed some and went outside to turn it off again afterwards.  We started looking for help.

A friend who is a knowledgeable handyman stopped by and diagnosed a failed pressure valve on the water heater.  He also gave us the name of another handyman who could fix the problem, a handyman who had done work for us in past years.

So we called up Sam and he came and had a look.  The diagnosis: you need a whole new water heater (which was what Ron had thought also.)  We don't know beans about that, so we gave Sam the go ahead.  The following Monday he was able to come, along with the new heater.  This is the old water heater going bye-bye.

The laundry room here is a small 5' x 5' "closet" off the kitchen.  The washer and dryer are a very large, stacked pair in there.  There is also a water heater and just enough room for a set of plastic shelves to hold all the cleaning utensils, etc.  That shelving unit had to be moved out to make room for taking out the old water heater and putting in the new.

That wasn't too bad.  I just gently dragged it into the kitchen.  Then Sam got to work.

When he removed the old water heater we found that at some time tile had been laid around it, but not under it.  It was very wet and dirty underneath there.  I cleaned that up and we put in a spare tile that we had found in the storage closet out by the carport.

Here's the big new water heater ready to be installed.

We enjoyed having Sam around that day.  He's so cheerful!  He worked so hard!  He told us that he just loves working.  We happen to know that he is 82 years old, still going strong as ever.  Jim asked him where he lives, and it is not in our village.  I jokingly told Jim, Well, Sam's too young to live here! (Age requirement: 55)  Sam relished that joke.

Here he is wrestling the water heater into position.  He worked so hard and fast that he was dripping sweat down his face.

So the new water heater is all hooked up and works just the way it's supposed to.  I think the hot water is a little too hot, but Sam says that it's factory set at 125º.  Still, when I take a shower now, I have to have the shower faucet (one of those round ones) set quite a bit lower than before.

It's only when you lose one of your modern conveniences that you recognize how easy all these conveniences make our daily lives!