Yesterday, Sam took a (much deserved) day off, went surfing, relaxed. Prior to that (and more today) he's been dealing with water. Which means, among other things, that we've been without hot water for a couple of days, which hasn't been a problem at all. Especially when we compare it to the 12 hours a few days ago in which we didn't have any water at all. Funny how you really notice things like, say, running water, when you don't have it! The water has to be dealt with because the water heater (and the HVAC unit) have to be moved in order to build up the last wall of the garage (which will go directly behind where the water heater and HVAC unit used to be). The part of the 'dealing with water' that I experienced was Monday evening when I got home. I knew we didn't have hot water again when I saw this:
The water heater being completely disconnected from everything is never a good sign! Then I heard a disembodied voice coming from underneath the house: Dale was under there finishing up the plumbing...
...which will lead to the compressor room, which is where the hot water heater will be.
Sam was in the compressor room, putting the finishing touches on the drywall in there:
Gary, the nicest plumber in the whole wide world, was there dealing with some complicated stuff that had to be done in order to remove the HVAC unit. (For those of you who care, he had to evacuate the freon back into the compressor so that we could disconnect the cooling coil from the air conditioner before we could move the HVAC unit. I'm not sure I know what all that means, but Sam does. And Gary really was a super nice guy, even giving Dan a can of adhesive to fix his car roof with!)
ANYway... this is Gary.
And this is what the back of the house looks like, these days.
Then I drove Dan to the airport. Which is sad for many reasons, but in particular because I think he would have enjoyed experiencing everything that happened once I got home...
Not that I've really minded living without (hot) water, but to soften the blow Sam occasionally reminds me that, once this is all done, we will have softened water, better water pressure, and all kinds of good things. He hooked up the water softener...
... and filled the reservoir...
... and he and Dale hefted the water heater into its new position in the compressor room.
After all the connections were, well, connected, we turned on the water main and held our breath... and then Dale noticed a leak in some of the plumbing he'd done.
So we turned of the water, emptied the pipes, dried off the pipes, and soldered them better...
Then we turned on the water again, held our breath again... and before the water even got to the last of the pipes, the air pressure caused one of them to disconnect completely! Oooops, we'd forgotted to solder that one. We turned off the water, emptied the pipes, dried everything off, Dale soldered the pipes... (did I mention that all this was happening in the dark, at 8 pm, by flashlight?)... and we turned on the water again. Held our breath. Everything seemed copacetic!
Except that in the house there was no water at all coming out if you turned on the hot water.
Sam and Dale crawled under the house, examined the pipes, moved things around (I wasn't going to get under there with them, so I don't know exactly what they did, but it took them a long time!), and then we did the whole rigamarole again...
... this time we had water! Even out of the hot water side of things!
Before we went to bed that night, Sam turned off the water main, just to be on the safe side. But the following day everything still seemed to be working perfectly! Whew!
Unfortunately, because he was working so hard, Sam didn't get to climb up to the second floor with me to watch the sunset...
... luckily, there will be other sunsets! And probably tonight we'll have hot water!
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