Have you ever seen the old movie, The Money Pit? Some days…no, some weeks…I feel like I’m living that movie.
A few weeks ago, our air conditioner broke. The HVAC guys wanted to basically gut our house and do $6,500 worth of work. We just got a new blower for the A/C instead, for about 1/4 of the cost. Of course, 1/4 of that amount is still a pretty hefty chunk of our savings!
Shortly after we got that problem taken care of, our washing machine overflowed. Thankfully, our washer and dryer are located in the garage. That’s not normally convenient, but when it overflows (this was not the first time for us), it is. Anyway, so we had the plumber come out last week and snake our pipes. It mostly solved the laundry issue and completely fixed our bathroom sink that hadn’t been draining, but the bathtub still has some issues. But I am starting to get caught up on laundry and last night, I even washed and dried the mats that had gotten soaked during the garage flood.
And then last night, after I’d gone to bed and Mark had gotten home from work, I was abruptly woken up by him saying, “We’ve got big trouble.” That couldn’t be good, right?
No, it wasn’t good.
Apparently, he’d been sitting in the living room when he heard a GUSH! The best we could tell, at 11:30 at night, is that our water heater was spewing water into our crawl space. He went outside and looked into the crawl space and sure enough, it was full of water. (Side note: Our A/C and heater are in the crawl space, so they don’t work and sometimes break when the crawl space gets flooded. Found that out on one of the coldest days of winter a couple years ago.) So, he got out our sump pump, realized he needed a different hose to hook it up, went to Walmart to buy the hose, hooked it up and finally went to bed around 2 a.m.
He’s called the plumber today and they’re supposed to come out and see what the problem is. We probably need a new water heater, and I’m just hoping that we don’t have water damage in the walls or anything.
The good news, Mark tells me, is that we might be able to get a different type of water heater that would allow us to knock out a wall in our bathroom and make it bigger.
Right. Another project. That’s the good news?
What was that you wrote on my blog about me being you, living in a different place? AMEN!!! This is the story of our lives for the last 4 years. The only appliance left to replace is the fridge. We have spent 4 years tracking down the source of the water that floods our girls’ rooms when we get a driving rain. So, we empathize. Homeownership rocks. Someday we’ll get together and swap stories…
oh yuck. no fun. i hope this is it!
That stinks! But at least it happened in Sept…not too hot, not too cold–that’s a blessing…
Oh no! Yuck!
I hope it’s less expensive than the last few problems!
Are you wanting to get the water heater that only heats what you’re using- more like a pump? That’s what we want to get when our heater goes.
oh, sad. it’s frustrating how one thing piles on top of the other
UPDATE: We’re getting a new water heater tonight. And while it’s going to be the regular (read: cheaper) kind so there will be no additional home renovations, it’s also being installed by someone OTHER than the plumbing company. As often happens (usually with okay or even good results), Mark knows a guy. We’ll see how this goes…
(Although, it’s going to cost $400 LESS to have this guy do it and supposedly he’s getting us a better heater.)
Thanks for commiserating, friends.
UPDATE: We have a new water heater. And it cost $450 less than our original quote. So all in all, not the worst disaster ever.
I still live in a Money Pit, though.
that movie was so frustrating! (so i imagine it’s much more frustrating in real life!;)
Yes, I prefer my entertainment to be completely escapist with only happy endings!
yes, i know ;)