Hot Water Blues

well..... yesterday afternoon, after doing dishes for the umpteenth time this weekend.... I ran out of hot water..... not a drop....ugh

the water heater is gas, not electric, which means that it heats up quickly.... and doing dishes should NEVER have used it all up....... I was pretty distressed..... so I did what I usually do when under immense duress.... I went to bed for a nap......

woke up, still no hot water..... ugh...... so I phoned my landlord... something I hate doing, cause I'm not that kind of complainer... but since I've been fighting flu/cold/sore back for almost 2 weeks, I really didn't have much fight to take on Union Energy, OR a hot water tank....

So my landlord comes over..... we dug out the rental bill, and he phoned Union Energy... found out that the tank isn't rented after all, but OWNED.... and has been paid up since 2000... so much for asking Union Energy for a replacement!!

anyway, to make a short story long, ( which is a gift, don't you kid yourself! ) .... he checked the tank out... found out that it was firing, and that it SHOULD be heating up......

in the process, while in the back room, we discovered two things......

[1] That the hot water and cold water were looped ( tied in together into a 'T' - See photo above ) .... which means that when you put hot water on, you get hot AND cold.... miracle plumber must have hooked THAT up.......... there are shut off valves, that don't work any more.... tsk.....

[2] I could hear running water in the drain..... I thought that seemed weird, given the fact that nobody was showering... I limped upstairs, and found out that the toilet in the upstairs bathroom had been running for who knows how long... hours... maybe days........ the little chain had broken off, the one that hooks onto the handle... tsk.....

Anyway.... I adjusted the chain to a different spot on the handle..... and the running water stopped.... waited a couple of hours... and what do you know.... I had hot water again....

CAN YOU IMAGINE!! I ran off an entire tank of hot water through the toilet..... jeepers...... only me...

now I know why I would get that nice warm feeling every time I used the upstairs bathroom!! it had HOT WATER in it.... for crying out loud...

So the landlord will be fixing the loop problem later this week.... and we'll be back to flushing with cold water... like every NORMAL house in the world....

jeepers!!