Geysers

You know you've had an exciting day when the first thing your son tells his grandma (who's come to watch him for the afternoon while his mom teaches) is: "Bubby! We had a geyser in our back yard!"

Geyser indeed (although I--perhaps fortunately--didn't get to see it). In fact, I was pretty much oblivious. Andrew was at preschool and Evelyn was napping, so I was downstairs with the sound of the heater and the washing machine in my ears and missed our neighbor's pounding on the door upstairs. I only knew something was wrong when I heard Dan's voice (in the middle of the day! Apparently, our kind neighbor, unable to rouse anyone at the house, called the only person he knew to contact--Dan's dad, who promptly told Dan to get home asap).

As first time home buyers, we have occasionally learned some home truths about home ownership the hard way. (Like, check the date on your water heater when you buy the home.) Today, we learned another one. You really do need to turn off the outside water before it freezes, or the pipes will burst. One of the exposed pipes outside our house burst; thus the geyser. (It must have been pretty impressive, since the neighbor who saw it lives across the street, and the geyser was in the back of the house).

Dan and our neighbor tried to find the shut-off valve in the basement and came up empty. Our neighbor managed a temporary fix for the broken pipe, and we've got a plumber lined up for early next week (he was supposed to come today, but an exploding toilet took priority). We called the previous owners and found out that there is no outside shut-off valve, only valves that turn off all the water in the house. I confess, I'm a bit bemused by this. By what weird quirk of fate does it work out that the previous owners had nearly 10 years in this house, with no problems with broken pipes (and clearly, without shutting off the water to the outside, since that isn't possible)--only for us to deal with the broken pipes within weeks of the first freeze?

Oh well, at least it was taken care of quickly and will--hopefully--be solved equally swiftly.