Well the house definitely put up a fight, but the final score for the weekend…Me 3 House 1. As it turns out the people on the Hot Water Heater box where WRONG! I didn’t need two people to install nor move the heater. Instead I employed a bear hug and much grunting and before you know it….hot water. Ok well it didn’t go quite as well as that, but I have to say, it could’ve gone A LOT worse. As it turns out, the whole project (including slurpies, parts run and puke clean-up) took about 5 hours. Yes, I realize that there is a lot that needs explaining after that last sentence. So here goes…I started the hot water heater project at about noon on Saturday. This was about four hours later than I had planned due to a nasty case of HALOitis (not to be confused with halitosis) which I contracted the night before. (I’d just like to give a special shout out to Babymaker2000, Urillegitimatechild and j dub el u for a wonderful evening.) HOLAitis is a nasty condition that, if left untreated, can cause irritability, sleepiness, the inability to track time annnnnnnnd holes in the wall shaped like X-box controllers. The only treatment for HALOitis is the constant nagging of one who isn’t affected (usually a female but not always…. Shout out to kdpm98.) Anyway, I finally make it out to the garage to identify what exactly I have to do and right away realize that I need to go to Lowes for parts I didn’t know I needed. This didn’t really bother me too much as going to Lowes for me is like going to Toys R Us for my kids. What did bother me was I wasn’t sure what exactly I needed parts-wise, and the only way I was going to know what I needed was to rip apart the heater. This sounds simple enough, but bear in mind, when you take out a water heater you have to shut off the water and the gas to the house. Not exactly something you want to start and then discover you can’t finish right away.
Once I had a complete list of what I needed, the kids and I jumped in the car and headed to Lowes. On the way, we stopped at 7-11 to grab their favorite treat…Wicked Apple Slurpies. The clerk at 7-11 always laughs at me when we do this because I only fill up their drinks half-way. Someday, when things are called what they really are, I will be laughing at the clerk with my half filled glass of diabetes. Seriously, those things are ice and sugar with a little bit of dye to turn your poop pink. So, slurpies in hand we hit Lowes. Now I could pontificate about Lowes for days. Literally, it’s like a time warp for me when I walk in. Five minutes in Lowes for me is like one hour in the real world. However, I’ll limit my words for Lowes in this post to say that I got the parts I needed and checked out with relative ease. I love Lowes!
We got back home and I started in on the water heater. In the mean time Abigail was complaining of not feeling well so I had her lie down on the couch and watch Diego (a show best watched from several rooms away.) Suddenly I look up and there is Abigail holding her tummy. She says her tummy hurts and then proceeds to spray apple smelling vomit all over her shoes and the floor. Fortunately, I had just turned the gas and water back on and was able to clean things up.
One note to anyone who decides to update their hot water heater….make sure that you clean out any rubber gaskets and other pieces of stuff that can clog water lines. I actually only spent 3 hours on the water heater, the rest of the time was troubleshooting the kitchen faucet and why it wouldn’t put any hot water out. In the end I took off the hot water valve under the sink and that appeared to work.
All in all I consider this weekend a victory. I still need to replace the heating element in the stove next weekend and the light bulb in the fridge this week at some point, but I replaced the water heater, secured the washer and dryer platform in the garage (seriously it sounded like the space shuttle launch every time the washer started the spin cycle) and I even managed to fix our bed. The middle rail was broken in the middle from a previous dragon attack (see “Goin' Potty with the Paper”.) Final score for the weekend? Me: 3 House: 1. I’ll take it.
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