No Drops

Bear with me as I bemoan the fact that spring is never coming this year. Last year my lovely wee snowdrops were blooming by the end of February. Granted a week later they were once again buried under snow but STILL!! I knew they were there! This year they're still fast asleep, not even thinking about poking out their tiny buds to see if it's TIME. They know. And they're waiting.

I had another ordeal to get through last night. Remember I had to get a repairman for my hot water heater? Yeah...him...well, he tried I guess, he cleaned a sensor and reset the unit and for about 10 days things were ok but then again last Friday my shower was a tad coolish...so on Saturday yet another repairman came. He proceeded to talk my ear off, regaling me with stories of this heater and that furnace blah blah blah...Did he take out a tool? No. Did he get down on his knees and look closely at the heater's innards? No. Did he tell me about 100 or more scenarios that could be causing the problem? Yes. Did he fix anything? No. He unplugged the heater, then replugged.

TA DA!!

Ok, fast forward to Tuesday morning. I could just tell by how quickly the shower water was cooling down that "Houston, we have a problem." I looked at the heater and sure enough there was another error code BLINKING BLINKING BLINKING... Of course I had to head to school so put in for another service call. Yes, they can send someone out between 4pm and 8pm.

By about 6:30pm another repairman came to my door. I asked "should those lights be BLINKING BLINKING BLINKING???" "Nope", he replied. I left him to it and about 30 minutes later he emerged from the basement apologizing...I knew there were problems from the amount of time he was spending on his phone calling his boss! The heater needed a new thingamajiggy! Problem was he didn't have one but his boss was on his way back from Chatham and he'd get the part from him and replace it.

So he left for awhile, came back around 8pm and down to the dungeon once more. Bang, clank, whack whack, on and on it went. It was almost 9pm by the time he dragged himself up the stairs one last time to show me how much crud was inside the old thingamajiggy.  I nodded wisely, yes indeedy, it needed to be replaced. Whatever the hell it is!?

Finally I was able to drag myself off to bed. As I wearily went upstairs to my beloved bed I wondered at the sad state of affairs this world has come to when a hot water tank that is only 2 years old could have thingamajiggys so full of crud that they don't work anymore. I rent my hot water tank so for three service calls, unplugging and replugging, hemming and hawing and a new part I paid absolutely nothing. (Though who can tally the cost of my annoyance???) What a business model! I'm sure that for however much it cost to pay those three men to come to my house and for the price of the part I made out like a bandit while the company...well, not so much.

No wonder the economy went to hell in a handbasket! It makes my head hurt just to think about this one company's inefficiencies.

So I'm just going to think nice thoughts about flowers and robins and bees and sunshine.

Dum Diddy Dum Dum Dum...

Oh hurrah for hot water heaters...when they work properly that is!  A mere two years ago our old hot water heater bit the dust allowing the tank of water to flow freely throughout the basement. So a new one was installed, which we rent from Reliance. They need to pick a new name for that company I think because I cannot rely on their hot water heaters!!

What's happening? Not enough is happening, that's for sure! Running out of hot water while in the midst of a shower is NOT TERRIBLY FUN on these days of -18c. Or any other time come to think of it. The hot water heater and the furnace are linked together so hot water is needed to drive the furnace. The problem is that once the hot water gets used by the furnace the hot water tank thinks it's done for the day and it doesn't kick in to heat up more water, it just sits there, looking pretty. Hah!

I discovered yesterday that if I unplugged the heater and then plugged it back in it would "kick in" and start running again. I had to do that 2 or 3 times yesterday. This morning, after my shower, I did the unplug/plug thing but nothing happened...grrrr! So I turned the furnace down to 16c and headed off to work. I had arranged for a repairman to come today between 4 & 6pm. Hence the dum diddy dum dum dum as I sit here twiddling my thumbs as I await his Royal Lordship of the Hot Water Monopoly!!

When I got home from school I turned the thermostat up to 19c but after an hour it's only 18c in here. The hot water has been used up and I'm listening for the sound of the hot water heater and I hear....NOTHING! So I've turned off the furnace as it will just keep running forever while waiting for an injection of hot water without getting one iota warmer in here. 

Sigh.....to be continued...

5:05pm Just got a call - Mr. Repairman is on his way!!

5:26pm FIXED! YAY! There was an "ignition failure" (sort of sounds like an aborted space mission)! Abort Abort!! "Brad" cleaned the flame sensor, reset the error code and off we go to the moon! Thanks Brad!