Friday, October 26, 2012

The joy of old houses. . .

We discovered a few days after moving in that the oven on the awesome vintage stove in our house wasn't working.  So for the almost two months we've been living here, we've had no oven and it turns out the repair man can't find the right parts for the ancient stove, so its whole awesomeness must be discarded.  Sad about that, but glad that hopefully by some time this coming week, I will have a functional oven.

Saturday afternoon, I had a meeting to attend in Butte, so I left with the dishes not yet done.  When I got home and got kids to bed, I went to do dishes and the water wouldn't heat up.  Doug crawled down into the basement (and by "basement" I mostly mean "covered hole in the ground") and discovered that the pilot light on the water heater had gone out.  Thought that was weird, got it relit, did the dishes and went to bed.

Then we woke up to get everyone ready for church on Sunday morning, and again water wouldn't heat up.  The pilot light had gone out again.  So I bathed the little girls and I as best I could in tepid water and went to church.  A repairman from NorthWest Energy stopped by on Monday, cleaned everything on the water heater really well and called it good.  A few hours after he left, we had to relight it in order to do dishes and bathe the kids.  So that's what we've been doing all week--Doug would crawl down to the basement and light the pilot, I'd wait 15-20 minutes and then bathe kids or do dishes.  Finally, yesterday morning, a plumber came out and checked it out and replaced the thermocouple and thought that would do it.  It still won't stay lit, and now even when it does light, the water isn't actually getting hot--luke warm at best.  And its Friday:  wanna take any bets on whether or not we get a repairman here before the the weekend starts?

Sigh.  Just in time for the 30 degree weather and a couple of inches of snow on the ground, we can't get any hot water.  Maybe I should brave the roads ands spend the gas money and go to mom's house for the weekend.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

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