A Cartridge Miracle

Since we've moved into this house, the water's been a little funky.

At first, the water would be really warm and then get cold and never get warm. We called our home warranty people about it, and they came and had a look.

It turned our that the tube that was supposed to go all the way down to the bottom of the waterheater was only about 2 feet long. They replaced it with a tube that went all the way to the ground and ever since, our water has worked pretty well.

We were so grateful to have warm water, that we didn't really mind when it came out scalding and took forever to cool down. Keven and other children who come here frequently learned to let me turn the water on for them so that I could make it cold enough for them to put their hands into.

However, it was livable, and we weren't too worried about it. We figured it was just a quirky house thing, and didn't know what could be done about it anyway.

Then, the other day, Allopex, Grig's younger brother (who is between him and Havelock in age), mentioned that the water in the downstairs shower was freezing. Our home warranty might expire soon, and so we decided to give them a call and have them come and look at it.

They came a day later. I thanked them for coming so soon, and the man told me that they don't have much to do in January because no one has any money left after Christmas. I thought that was kind of funny.

Anyway, he took a look at the shower and turned off the water (which was somewhat inconvenient because I was peeling potatoes when it happened and I hadn't considered that the water was going to be shut off. It was okay though). Only about ten minutes later he came back upstairs (Grig stayed with him) and told the rest of us he had finished. I asked him what the problem had been.

He told me that the faucet had a cartridge inside that was broken and wasn't allowing the water to mix. So, you either got straight hot or straight cold. He had simply replaced the faucet and cartridge.

This is a similar type of cartridge. Link to this picture here. 

We were grateful and paid him the service fee. Ever since then, the shower downstairs has worked great!

The unforeseen consequence of that, however, is that everything else has changed to. The water in every other sink is now normal.

I can't see any reasonable explanation for that, and we're calling it a miracle. It makes us wish we'd gotten that cartridge replaced a lot sooner. I'm so grateful that we called the plumber. It's been wonderful for Kevin to be able to turn on and off the sink by himself and for the water to actually be warm in the middle setting, and not boiling.

It's also been wonderful for the two brothers downstairs to have a working shower (though now they may take longer showers, which isn't so wonderful.) ;)

We are so grateful for our cartridge miracle. We're also grateful that we had a way to call a plumber for not too much money.

After all, it's January. Everybody's poor, right?

Hot Water

It's strange what you take for granted.

Like hot water, for instance. You don't really think about how wonderful it is, until you don't have it anymore.

When we were touring the home, the renters told us that the hot water was finicky. They said it would be warm for a few minutes, and then would get really cold and never warm up again. Even so, we still really liked the house and that didn't really deter us.

When we tested the tub water, it was very warm and so we didn't really worry about it. The faucet was backwards, meaning that when you turn it the warm direction it was actually cold, and so part of me hoped that the renters had simply not known what way to turn the faucet.

However, after we tried to take a shower, we confirmed that the renters had been right. The water would be super-hot for about two minutes, and then it would suddenly plummet.

However, as part of our deal to purchase the home, the sellers paid for a home warranty. Using that, we were able to order a plumber to come and look at the problem. The hot water tank is actually less than a year old. That was good news, but we hoped it wasn't a piping problem.

Link to Picture

It turned out it was a fairly easy fix. The hot water tank has a tube that is supposed to go all the way down to the bottom to draw the water starting from the base upward. However, the tube that was in the tank was only about a foot long and made of cheap plastic. They replaced the tube with a much longer one made of better quality material.

Grig took a warm shower last night and for the first time there was steam in our bathroom. It is so nice to have hot water again!

I couldn't even fill up two sinks for dishes before.

We have also now had our home re-keyed. There are new locks on the front door. That made us pretty happy.

We've made a lot of improvements already. Things are looking pretty good around here. There is still a lot to do, but it's really starting to feel like home.