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.