Today I took a shower for the first time in our new house. This was made extra remarkable for the fact that a) it was past noon and b) we've been officially living in the house (not just visiting to get things ready for move-in) since Sunday.
As it turns out, we'll be buying a new water heater rather sooner than we expected. Although the gas company kindly unlocked the gas for us some time ago, it was up to us to make sure all the gas appliances were lit and functioning (we didn't know this until recently). The furnace worked just fine, but three calls to the gas company and over an hour and a half of effort on Dan's part failed to get the pilot light lit on the water heater. We called in a knowledgeable neighbor--he pointed out that the knob that supplied gas to the pilot was broken, but he couldn't get it on either. So this morning, we called in a technician, who, for a mere $70, was able to finally get the light lit. However, in the process of all this, we learned that replacing the broken knob would require replacing a whole fixture, which, with labor, would cost nearly 1/3 of the replacement cost of a heater--not to mention the fact that we also discovered the age of our heater: at 22 years old, it seems past time for someone to put the heater out of its misery.
Luckily, the old water heater seems to work just fine for now (well enough for baths, laundry, and dishes), and we are hoping to have a new one in soon. In the meantime, we are looking forward to Dan's first paycheck . . .
3 comments:
Ah the added costs of home ownership. We bought in April and I'm still surprised that as a decently educated person, it still came as shock to me when the lawn grew and grew and grew. Our anniversary gifts that first year were lawn mowers, shovels, bags of weed and feed.
Darn houses.
But they are worth it in the end.
I guess my knee-jerk "Gross!" reaction to your not showering for four days was precipitous. Good luck water heater shopping.
Lia
Lia--it wasn't that bad. I'd showered on Sunday before we drove down, so it was actually only two days. But it was still bad enough.
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