Back from vacation… getting things done around work… getting finances in order… gee, what could possibly go wrong now? How about some dirty water coming out our faucets? It all started Sunday morning. After spending a lovely afternoon with my Mom and some other family members (including the requisite lunch at Chick-fil-A) the day before, I was doing some laundry before heading out to see the in-laws and decided to take care of flushing the furnace while down in the basement. I should have known better than to try to accomplish anything.
After getting the water in the furnace clean enough that you could bath in it… you know, if you could bath in water that’s over 200 degrees… The Woman (hey, let’s use my proper nickname for Lisa) noticed water taking on more of an orangish color than usual. And as much as I love the color orange, I try to avoid it in water. Fortunately it was only the hot water taps pumping out our new rainbow water – so all I had to do was figure out how to make the cold water taps also provide hot water…
In reality I knew this meant we should flush the water heater. I consulted the Internet – provider of all answers for questions normally unsolvable by alcohol – to make sure flushing it was as simple a process as I thought. And sure enough it was – attach hose, put hose in sink, open valve, and let ‘er rip. Seeing what came out made me feel like I needed a shower… at someone else’s house.
We repeated this process a couple of times and then again when we got home that night. And nothing went wrong and we all lived happily ever after… yeah, right.
Unfortunately the pressure of the water in the tank prevented me from fully closing the drain valve. At first it was just a slight drip, but pretty soon I realized we would need to empty the bucket I was using every hour – and that’s just not conducive to our schedules. So now I find myself reading manuals, home improvement sites, etc. trying to figure out what to do next. Hey, why not just empty the damn thing and then close it up! And what do you know? It works! Of course re-filling the tank kicks up all of the sediment that didn’t come out while draining. So now we have orange water again…
The Woman wants a new water heater. I say orange isn’t such a bad color…
Wait just a minute – you have a Chick-Fil-A near you?!?!?!
Well, about 40 minutes away. Which is close enough for me to consider it a viable lunch option 😉 Fortunately my family is still primarily in Pennsylvania – there’s a couple Chik-fil-As by them.
Oh. Well that makes me feel a little better. Did you ever make it to Long John Silver’s? (I believe we discussed that before)
Ew, orange water. I think Lisa has the right idea. Thankfully ours isn’t doing that at the moment, but taking a bath doesn’t work well. We’re going to have to put off replacing the hot water heater another year because the dishwasher has been oozing this rusty liquid goop onto the floor whenever it runs, and the stove is about five minutes away from collapsing on the floor like the car in the Blues Brothers
So yeah, stove and dishwasher next. Yick.
We replaced the water heater a few months ago, as we got tired of getting 5 minutes of hot water in the shower. Up next – new flooring in the living room.
¡Viva adulthood!
Isn’t it great to live the American dream?