Third Night's A Charm - or Not

So for the third night in a row, we had a major issue with the house.

First it was the water heater (or so we thought), then we discovered the massive plumbing leak. Last night it was the electricity.

As we were getting ready for bed last night (and for those who know me, you'll know that was well into the wee hours of the morning) when the power went out. Living out here in the hinterlands, that's not an uncommon occurrence, but in the middle of summer -- even at 3 a.m. -- air conditioning is not something you want to be without for very long. The wind had started picking up right before we went to bed, and we figured that was probably the cause of our problem, so we called the power company to report the outage and went outside to investigate.

When the power goes out, we have a routine. First, we look around and see who else has lost power. If it's only our house, it's probably a fuse. If it's our house and a few other houses to the east, the problem is in the minor power line leading to our house, and as long as we report the outage they will probably fix it relatively quickly. If the whole Valley is dark, there's something seriously wrong and we could be out of power for a long, long time.

But at 3 a.m., it's hard to tell whether a house has no power or all the residents are simply more sane than I and have gone to bed for the night. We were able to see some outdoor lights on at a few houses to the east, however, and all the cities around seemed to be pretty bright, so we began to decide that the problem was just at our house -- more than likely a fuse.

So we went back to the fuse box, but none of the fuses had been tripped. (Meanwhile, the poor kitten trapped in our flooded crawlspace, near the fusebox, made sure we knew he was still there.) Back out to the front of the house, we looked at the power line leading in to the house, we looked at the transformer box, and nothing looked out of place. We watched the roads to see when the power company might be coming out to fix the problem (it's amazing how many people are on the road at 3 a.m.).

Finally we decided to test the water pump. Turn the hose on and if the pump has no power we would lose pressure pretty quickly. But no, the water pump kicked right on. Then we knew the problem was at our house. We kept asking ourselves what the problem could be. We paid the bill... We checked the fuses... Oh, wait! The house and the pumphouse are on two different sets of fuses. We only checked the house fuses, we didn't check the main property fuses!

Sure enough, with a flip of a switch all our power was restored, and we could go to bed in air conditioned comfort, pleased that this problem was simple and relatively easy to fix.

And the power company? We tried calling them back to let them know our problem had been fixed, but we lost cell reception (we don't own a landline phone), so we couldn't get ahold of them. About an hour later, we heard the truck outside and my husband went out, told them our power was back on and thanked them for a job well done.

No, really. THANK GOODNESS it's summer!

Well, our water heater problems got about 100 times worse last night. Had it not been for a screaming kitten, though, they would have been 1000 times worse.

Living in the country, we become a home base for all the stray kittens that city folk drop off around here. So it wasn't too surprising to hear a crying kitten when I got home from work yesterday evening. But I recognized this as the desperate plaintive scream of a fat cat stuck in a chimney or a not-so-fat kitten caught in some other terrifying situation (the cat in a chimney ordeal is another story for another time, by the way). So hubby and I grabbed our flashlights and started searching for the little guy.

We found him under the house. This was odd because cats go in and out from under our house all the time; there's really no reason for a cat to feel trapped under there. So we did some more investigating, and that's when we found it. There is enough standing water under our house for a high school swim meet. This tiny stray kitten got trapped in a back corner of the crawl space (probably the only few square inches of semi-dry land under there) and in doing so alerted us to the fact that we have a plumbing issue. A major plumbing issue.

After some investigation we've decided that the supply line from the water heater to the front bathroom is busted. That was most likely the thump that hubby heard the other day when we initially lost heat and pressure. And since all our heated water is just pouring out of the pipes into the crawl space under our house, we have no hot water. The water heater is trying to keep up, but it just can't heat the water as fast as it's cycling through.

So for now, we've turned off the water supply line that leads into the water heater and drained its tank so that the leak will stop. But there is no chance of getting under the house to even assess the problem until it dries out.


Thank goodness it's summer!

With temperatures forecast to hit 115º all of this coming week, we are hoping that it won't take too long to dry all that water out. And then we'll get the joyous task of crawling into a tiny and likely still-muddy crawl space to locate, assess and repair what is probably a gaping hole in our 60-year-old plumbing.

Meanwhile, we'll be visiting my parents quite frequently to use their shower and washing machine. Thank goodness we like my parents!

And the cat? He's still under there, screaming his poor little head off. We can't get to him, so he will just have to get desperate enough to wade through a few inches of water to escape. Hopefully that will be soon.

Thank goodness it's summer.

We live in an extreme climate. During the summer, it reaches well over 110º and can be over 100º deep into the nights. The last few weeks have been like that. When I've been driving home from work at 6p or 7p it's still 108º or 109º. While we are thankful for many things here in our little slice of heaven, summer is rarely one of them.

But today I uttered the words, "Thank goodness it's summer."

Why? Because our water heater just went out and until we can get the parts to repair it, we'll be showering in cold water. But since it's summer, our water is pre-heated in the plumbing and never really gets all that cold to start with, so we'll actually be showering in cool-ish water.

Thus are the joys of an old home, especially one built by hand by one man and his small group of whatever family members and friends were willing and able to help. My husband heard a thump coming from the general direction of the water heater during the day, and poof! The hot water was gone.

But not only is the hot water no longer hot, the water pressure has dropped significantly, which is odd. We have spotted the potential source of the water heater problem (a heating element that has gone out), but are still perplexed as to the reason for the drop in water pressure.

Our water pressure has always been somewhat inconsistent. We pump our own water and there are noticeable fluctuations in pressure throughout the day. But this is much more severe. Something is causing it, and I can't figure out how it's related to the water heater element.

Well, tomorrow we'll dig in and see if we can figure it out. Meanwhile, it will be cool showers all around.