”Tradition”

We have some strange “traditions” in our family it seems. In December of 2017, before our daughter was born, we discovered a leak in the bathroom we renovated two years prior. Luckily, we could go through the wall from behind to take a look at the pipes instead of having to tear down the tile from the front. We could only conclude that the pipe to the shower head was not screwed on tightly or had somehow come loose. That was the end of that leak and after a few days of repatching the drywall and retexturing, life resumed.

“Turns white when dry” isn’t just for
elementary gluesticks!

This DIY fix was easily completed by my husband as we did not have to monitor a toddler on the move and keep her from touching the construction materials or getting paint on her clothes.

Two days before she was born, which also happened to be Easter Sunday, we found a leak in our water heater. We did not DIY the water heater. Paying for installation was well worth the cost because a.) it had to be done fast. Like within two days fast. And b.) our water heater sits in a closet in our garage about 3 feet up from the ground. Hoisting a 50 gallon water heater up into the closet and properly connecting the gas line, AND with drainage up to code under a time constraint was just too much to process mentally when a new baby was coming.

In the last two years, things around the house have been quiet when it came to construction. We replaced some windows here and there but no unplanned home maintenance to undertake.



We call it “tradition” because lo and behold, the same bathroom leaked again recently, and what do you know...we have another little one coming soon. But this time we did not DIY it. We called a plumber and he came out three hours later, and another three hours after that, the leak was gone, and our valve was straightened. That was not part of the leak but it was a nice positive benefit.

That evening my husband had replaced the drywall and the next day he started to mud.

Thankfully, besides the cost of the plumber, no extra repair costs were incurred because over the last five years, we’ve done enough construction to accrue a good selection of wood scraps, drywall pieces, plumbing supplies, tools, and paint to cover a good number of household maintenance around here. Great hint for keeping drywall mud from drying out: put plastic wrap directly on top of the mud, touching the top layer, before putting the lid back on. 

After this repair gets wrapped up and put behind us, we’ll have to start thinking about putting together a bedroom for our second child. Oh, and did I mention all this leak-fixing was in his future room? Yea, poor kid. The stories we will tell him later...

Here’s to hoping “tradition” doesn’t hold up too true and our water heater doesn’t die again in a few months. But it is under warranty this time!

Or we need to be done having babies. 😝

An Unexpected Water Feature

It started on a Thursday evening. I had just gotten home from a long day, about 8:15 pm and saw that the garage door was open - hubby was working outside. After I parked my car, I walked with my stuff to the front of our house to say hi and saw him talking to our neighbor who was in the middle of walking his dog. I greeted Allie and was letting her lick my hand and was in my own little world of relaxation when I heard the words, "You've got a leak." Suddenly, my attention left Allie and immediately focused on the problem at hand. We had a water leak, and water leaks are pretty high up on my list of "worst things that can happen" list.

To make things more complicated, the leak was at our water shutoff valve in front of the house, AND, our meter shutoff by the street was so snug that none of us could turn it off. So, being a Thursday night, and that the leak was still rather small, we let it slowly drip and went on our evening as usual. Our neighbor joked with us, "You've got your very own water feature now in your yard." Yup, I always wanted that landscape fountain...

On Friday morning, I walked outside to check on the leak before heading to work. The water had risen almost to the top of the valve box. Trying to make the most of my situation, I grabbed a cup and scooped out the water, pouring it around the flowerbeds. (If you don't know, we have a broken sprinkler system, so any kind of watering our lawn and flowerbeds can get is a good thing.)

That's a nice little pond there we had.

Once I got to work, I called the city and asked them to come out and turn off our water at the meter. They told me there would be a $20 service fee (as stated on their website), and I tried protesting it. I told the lady, "We are not trying to be lazy. We've tried multiple wrenches and even tried our neighbor's water meter key. It didn't budge." She then told me that if their guys went out there and found it hard to turn, they would waive the fee. Thank goodness.

Friday afternoon, Jonathan got off work early and went home. He and our neighbor tried to find the problem and fix it if it was easy enough. However, we realized yet another problem - there was still water leaking from the valve. And yes, the water was supposedly shut off at the meter. I called the city once again and asked them to come out and shut off the water a second time, because clearly it wasn't shut off. About two hours later, he came out, unhooked the entire meter because he said the angle stop was bad, and then told us to fix our leak first and then he would come back and fix the meter.

By then it was almost 7 o'clock, dinner was half cooked, and we had no water in the house. We made the call to pack up dinner, wash whatever dishes we could with reservoir gallon water (which is saved from our shower every evening while waiting for the water to heat up), and spend the night at my dad's house. After arriving at my dad's, we finished cooking dinner and ended the night with a movie.

Despite the chaos, we had stuffed bell peppers for dinner. It was pretty tasty!

The next morning, we called some plumbers to see if anyone could come out that afternoon. We had a plumber who said he could come out early afternoon, which worked out great because I was supposed to cook lunch for my dad as a late Father's Day lunch. After we ate and cleaned up, Jonathan and I packed up our stuff again and headed home, not sure if we could stay at our own house again, but hopeful.

Once we got back to our house, the plumber arrived shortly after and came out to look at the leak. He was very puzzled why the city had disconnected our meter and was rather annoyed. He said he had to have the water on to see where the leak was coming from in order to fix it. So he reconnected the meter, looked at the leak, tightened one nut, put the valve back together, and called it good. I was almost in disbelief as to how easily it was that he had fixed the problem. And on top of that, he didn't charge us anything. But it wasn't all fixed yet.

Our water was back on at this point, but there was still water leaking....now at the meter by the street. On the one hand, it was leaking water that shouldn't have been leaking. On the other hand, it was leaking before the meter so we weren't actually being charged for it. Once again, I called the city and told them about our situation and asked them to send someone out to fix our meter. In the mean time, rather than sit back and relax, Jonathan and I took advantage of the water that was overflowing at a rather fast rate out of our water meter box. It very easily could have just overflowed into the street and drained into the sewer, but he and I worked outside for an hour before the city guy came to fix it. One of us sat on the curb and scooped water out with an empty salsa jar into two 5-gallon buckets as well as our watering pail while the other carried the water and watered the flowerbeds, lawn, and wherever else needed it (which was pretty much every square inch of our property that wasn't our physical house.) Every so often we'd switch roles and do the other task. Yes, we did this for an hour.

Once the city guys came, we finally took our break and let them do their thing outside while we lay in our hammock inside and perused Facebook on our phones.

So there you have it. The most unexpected water leak that was resolved in possibly the best way ever...with a complimentary 20-30 gallons (at least) of water from the city that we conserved and reused.