Scattered Thoughts . . .

F or the past few days, we've had water heater problems.  There is never a good time for home maintenance problems but this is a lousy week for us to have an added thing that must be done as soon as possible.   First, I made a trip to Lowes to pick up a heating element.  A bad heating element would have been the typical problem so that is what I replaced first.  Even if the source of the problem wasn't the element, it wouldn't be a bad idea to install a new one so I did that.  Theoretically, a new one should be more efficient than one that has been used for many years.  Our water heater is now about 15 years old so it is near the end of its life span.  Actually, it is probably beyond its life span already.   With the heating element on hand, I then went about draining the water heater which was a bit time consuming.  I again had to clear a path to the back wall of the house (like I did to run water out to our outdoor shower a c...

I haven't written anything in about a week and a half because I've had some exceptionally lousy health and, more recently, I've been busy working on the house and out in the yard during my good health. Working on the house only happened after taking a few weeks off because of spinal problems. I managed to have a productive and busy weekend but I didn't get to touch a single thing that has been on my long 'to-do list'.   On Saturday afternoon, we had a broken water supply pipe due to repeated stress. The pipe just broke completely in two! The water was shooting out of the broken pipe like a garden hose with a nozzle on it! Water was everywhere! Our vanity was filled with water, soaking everything in the vanity. The flooring was soaked. On the positive side, the adjoining bedroom is a construction zone so no finished materials were damaged. The problem was gaining quick and easy access at a time when we needed to move quickly to minimize damage. The wate...