Going Without

A couple weeks ago I noticed that the floor outside of my downstairs bathroom squished when I walked on it. I could hear sloshing water under the floorboards. So I called my landlord. He didn't return my call. But the sloshing sound kept getting worse and I wasn't sure where the water was coming from. There's the bathroom, but I hadn't seen any signs of leaky pipes in there. Was the washer just across the hall draining wrong?

Then last night when I took a shower after my run, I had to crank up the hot water all the way and it was barely luke warm.  Lightbulb! The sloshy floor was right next to the hot water heater closet! So I checked it out and sure enough, there was a bit of water on the floor around the water heater and it smelled weird in there. I called my landlord again with an update.

This morning...no hot water. Called my landlord again. Twice. Showered at work. Finally I got a call back around 11, he gave me the number of a plumber and a floor guy.

So I met the plumber at my house and he checked it out. Confirmed that I "had a leaker." Was showing me a valve to turn off when I wasn't using the hot water to reduce flooding and I said, "Well, it's not making any hot water so I'm not really using it." He hadn't realized that so he took off the front of the water heater to expose a control panel. The water had leaked on it and shorted out the power. He reset the power to it by flipping the switch in the fuse box, and then the water heater caught on fire.

When the fire first started the plumber watched it. "Well, now we have a little fire," he said calmly. I panicked inwardly. He stood and watched the fire grow. I panicked inwardly some more. "Well isn't that lovely?" he said again. Then he *finally* turned the fuse switch off and blew out the fire.

Later he said, "Did you see how excited I got when the fire started?" I hope he was being sarcastic.

Anyway, since it flames when it has power, I need a new water heater. Which is fine, I'm renting so it ain't costing me anything. (So glad I'm renting at times like these!) But I can't get it until Monday...which means four mornings (including today) without a shower at my house.

I am surprisingly not that annoyed by this. I consider it to be a minor inconvenience, but not a big deal. No power/heat all weekend? That would be a bigger deal. No water at all? Sure, I'd have a hard time. But I've got access to a shower at work, and now I have motivation to drive there and run in the mornings since I have to go there to shower anyway. Typically on the weekends I run outside if it's nice, or not at all if the ground is covered in snow like it is now. So I'm kind of glad for this motivation.

I do use hot water to melt the snow off the puppy paws, but realized my blow dryer would work just fine for that. My biggest concern is doing dishes but I can heat up water on the stove for that. I just can't bring myself to get too worked up about any of this. I think of all the things people go without around the world, and if I have to go one weekend without hot water it's really pretty small potatoes. My puppies and I are safe and warm, and that's the important thing.

And honestly? If the hot water hadn't stopped working, my landlord might never have called me back about the floor and that could have rotted out floorboards and caused a huge problem. So really there are a lot of up sides to this. Like my house not burning down. And the plumber's attitude makes for a great story.