Not at all short version of why my children bathed way old school style last night:
Tuesday evening, Michael and I are in the basement trying to track down one of the ant entrances into the house, and we hear a LOUD metal pop sound from the water heater. We can not identify a problem, so we move on.
Thursday morning, water from the kitchen sink faucet makes a weird noise and looses half its water pressure. I test hot and cold water, both exist.
Thursday noon-ish, Michael notices faucet problem, worries. Tests hot and cold. I check main floor bathroom faucet, it still has normal water pressure. and hot and cold water. Though hot is not as hot as it was in morning. Michael uses “engineer” tactic #1 to attmpt to fix faucet: he bangs on it. Water pressure returns to kitchen faucet.
Water goes luke warm by end of day, cold by late night. Rebecca frets water heater is leaking (it’s not, there’s no water in my bedroom like there was 3 years ago when the water heater gave out and they had to replace it!). Michael says he’ll check on water heater in the morning. As I putz to bed, I shuffle around into the storage part of the basement and check the water heater. Status light is flashing non-normal. I count it, take a picture of the status chart, and text results to M & R, then go to bed.
Friday, Michael checks water heater manual, searches online, and finds 3 possible problems. Calls company that installed water heater for service. Guy shows up Friday afternoon. Finds 1 piece unseated due to improper installation, and 1 piece broken, possibly due to being under stress from unseated piece and extra demand due to double people from normal in household. Call manufacturer, piece is covered under warranty and they ship it that day. Misinstalled piece is installed (properly?) by guy under company service warranty. Michael pays for expedited shipping to get replacement piece to arrive in 1-2 days, as guy says he will be back tomorrow (Saturday) if the piece shows up. All seems well.
Saturday, replacement piece shows up right before noon. Michael calls company. He calls 4 times over the next 5 hours. They do not show up. In the meantime, he calls 4 other companies: 1 is no, 1 is too expensive, 2 are maybe and we’ll call you back. No call backs.
Sunday. Kids need to bathe. All of us are overdue. Adults have been using deodorant to cover up and baby wipes to sponge bathe. Aurora’s hair is severely in need of washing and conditioning. We boil water on the stove and dump it into the fridged cold water in the bathtub. I add a little more cold water to get to a usable temperature. It’s slightly more than half the amount of water we normally use, but I get Aurora and her hair washed! Add more hot water and a little cold to the existing bath water for Amber, and she successfully bathes too.
Monday, guy shows up at 8:04 am (for an 8am appointment, I call that on time). Has piece installed in 5 minutes. Water heater cycles and stays on this time! 40 minutes later we have hot water.
Fin.