Ready for new water
The preparations for changing the hot water tank are complete. Huge efforts by all involved (me, myself and I) to guarantee a path to all the critical points in the basement, when the experts finally arrive sometime early this week.
For those who always have their basements clean and in order, my kudos. That is not the situation in our house, where we actually live, year round. The basement (known colloquially as the lost empire) contains two decades of stuff, all too important to ever be thrown out (at least in my lifetime).
Working on the edges of our own personal waterway, I managed to push back all of the camping gear, some collected 78rpm records, a rather impressive collection of highschool yearbooks, some broken dog chains, painting tools and half a box of Lego. Then, the freezer with an assortment of future meals was turned 180 degrees to allow access during the crisis, plugged in to a new outlet and moved into the place formerly designated as “the camping stuff” area. So far so good.
A small dike of rolled up towels has diverted (sort of) the stream so that it all heads in the direction of the floor drain. The dehumidifier has been de-iced and drained, and now we’re depending on a spell of low humidity to make its task simple. I’ve chopped an access route through the jungle of old toys to allow easy access to the main water control and the breaker panel. I’ve shown all three sons, each in their own way, how to gradually cut power and water to the wounded reservoir. What else can I do?
Well, I can now pray that the installation team isn’t booked up until spring. Our supply of hot water is no longer endless sufficient, and doing a load of dishes, a load of laundry and two teenage showers gives a steady output of icy water from the kitchen faucet, peu importe which way you turn it. And people in the third world think they have a tough life!
