Crying over House Issues

This has been a hard post to write. I do not even want to think about all of the things that went wrong in the past couple of weeks nor of the thousands of dollars that we spent to fix them. For this post, I am going to follow a slightly different format. Because I was not at home while most of these events were occurring, I am going to write the post, but then Douglas is going to go back through and make corrections or add his own comments in italics. Here is our story.

Two weeks ago Douglas was at home holding down the fort while I visit with my family in Maryland. His plan was to be there for the electricians to be there to rewire the kitchen. We have known that this needed to happen since we tried to move the outlet over the stove. That was way back in March, and it took us this long to get several estimates and decide if we were ready to spend the $3,500-4,000 that it was going to take to get it done. We were finally ready to bite the bullet, and the electricians were scheduled to arrive on Tuesday morning.

Unfortunately, the house decided that one project was not enough and began to self destruct. It started on Monday morning when I received a text that read “Call me!” The exclamation point scared the crap out of me… not literally, but I was trembling as I picked up the phone.

Douglas had gone down to the basement to get something and stepped in a small puddle. He looked around and saw a geyser coming out of the hot water tank. We are so fortunate that he happened to get there as soon as he did. It would have been a disaster had the water spread over the entire floor. As it was, it was not good news. (It wasn’t quite a geyser, more of a steady flow, but enough that I could barely keep up with it. Last time I stay home alone. Scary part is I had plans to be away that morning that were cancelled last minute otherwise who knows what I would have found hours later)

I have wanted a tankless water heater for a while, but the plumber talked Douglas out of it. I had to speak to the plumber myself, and he finally agreed to do it. One of the biggest reasons that he tried to talk us out of the tankless system was that our tank was in the middle of the floor, and the tankless unit needed to be mounted on a wall. I knew that if I had been home, I would have been able to build the wall, but since I was over four hours away and without a car, I needed to convince Douglas that he would be able to do it. (I knew how to make a wall in theory, just never had to make one before, much less one that needed to be fairly sturdy. Biggest concern was attaching to concrete floor)

As he was letting the plumber out of the house, the door handle came off in his hand. That was a minor glitch in the system, but it was nearly the straw that broke Douglas’ back. Even the plumber commented, “Wow. It really isn’t your day, is it?” Fortunately, it was an easy fix for my man, and perhaps that was what gave him confidence to tackle the wall. (This was after plumber had spent over an hour trying to get water to stop dripping. Our shut off valve to hot water heater was shot and wouldn’t stop water. We had water shut off to house, opened faucets, etc but water kept dripping and he couldn’t sweat on a new shut off valve. Finally, we somehow slowed it enough that he got it done and we were able to restore water to the house. It was just the hot water at this point we didn’t have, but it at least was no longer leaking)

Douglas had never built a wall, and like many people he thought that it was a lot more difficult than it is. Here is the first vertical surface that Douglas ever constructed himself. I was so proud of him.

Despite all of his work, there was yet another obstacle thrown our way. The plumber returned the next morning with his father, who owns the company. The son was game to install the tankless water heater, but the father felt that it would be better for us to find a plumber that had more experience with those systems. I have used this plumber since I moved into the house and had a sewer pipe explode in the basement. I really trust him and appreciated that he called several plumbers himself to find someone to help us. It was disappointing that the work could not commence for a couple more days.

We rent out the second floor of our home. This provides us with extra income, but it can make things more difficult. Douglas was willing to go without hot water for a while, but if it were to take too long to install the heater, we would have had to prorate their rent for that month to compensate them. Thankfully, it was summer so they were willing to wait a couple of days.

In the meantime, the electricians arrived shortly after the plumbers and began their work in the yard, basement and kitchen. In order to put in a new lines in the kitchen, they needed to bring in another line from the street. They also gave us a new, larger breaker box. (Actually electricians were hard at work by the time the plumbers arrived, and one of them actually tried to throw in support for the tankless heater).

Everything looked great when they left. We were blessed that everything related to the electrical went well, and there were no further surprises in that area, just a big check to write at the end of the day.

Before the electricians left for the day, another plumber arrived to give us an estimate. He was confident that he would be able to do the installation without more trouble and that he would be able to do it the next day. The only sticky point for me was the cost. It would be $4,250 to put in a tankless water heater. This was almost $3,000 more than installing a water heater with a tank. That was a hard pill for me to swallow. Now it was Douglas trying to talk me into installing the tankless one. In the end, we decided to go for it.

The plumber returned early on Wednesday morning and got everything done in a day. The majority of the work consisted in creating a new ventilation system for the water heater. The old water heater vented through the furnace, but that was not an option with the tankless heater. When he left Douglas sent me pictures of the new heater and outside vent cover. We need to paint it so that it blends in a little better, but I am not very concerned about that at the moment. I am just happy to have never-ending hot water. (It wasn’t just venting the tankless system, it also needed a fresh air supply, so two lines were run).

It seemed that everything was going well. The plumber asked Douglas to run the water in the shower to make sure that it was heating well. As he returned downstairs to report that all was well, he noticed that something was dripping behind the plumber standing in the basement. It turned out that there was a leak in the pipe that drained the bathtub.

I have had trouble with that drain since I first moved in. Every couple of months, it starts to back up and has to be snaked. We have not been able to arrive at a permanent solution. Now we know why. The pipe was almost completely blocked and corroding. (There was barely a 1/4 inch diameter opening in the pipe because of all of the built up corrosion. Didn’t take much hair to plug it, and with two very fuzzy babies leaving their fur all over the floor and us tracking it into tub I’m almost surprised the drain ever worked).

Luckily, I have a handy husband, and Douglas was able to do this repair on his own. At this point my only worry was that he was going to destroy my house before I could get home. He had also threatened to put it up for sale before I returned. (It only took about 4 hours to repair with all of the trips to and from hardware store. Got the right parts the first time, but they wouldn’t work because corrosion was worse than I thought, so I had to start getting creative…)

Therefore, I was thrilled when we arrived on Thursday night to see that not only was my house still standing, but that it still belonged to me. I was sure that the worst was behind us, at least for a few months. Silly me! (I was close to finalizing a deal for a slab of beer for the house…)

A few days later, I opened the cabinet under the kitchen sink to get the vinegar and found a big puddle under the bottle. Yet another plumbing disaster! The pipe that drained the sink was also corroded and leaking. You can see that there was a pretty nice hole in the pipe. If you look closely you can see it at the bottom of the bend.

Douglas came to the rescue yet again. He replaced the pipe and put new plywood in the bottom of the cabinet. We are back on track. Knock on wood. (First ever repair in this house that only took one trip to hardware store and everything worked first time. No adjustments for leaks needed…)

So, that is what has been happening at the Cape of Dreams for the past couple of weeks. I am sorry that I was absent for so long, but I am back now and will be posting more regularly. There is a lot of work going on in our little house!

Happy Homemaking!