life, the universe, and donna

The kicker? I’m not even a homeowner. Nick is, but I’m just some squatter he hasn’t bothered to kick out yet. (Is it ok to say that I supplement my rent with blowjobs? Er… hi Mom! Maybe don’t read that last bit.)

Anyway, so I’ve been a renter for over 10 years, and while it’s always annoying to simply be paying someone ELSES mortgage (which, I suppose, I still am) the bonus of having someone else responsible for anything that goes wrong is definitely an advantage. (Wait a second: I’m STILL not a homeowner, and yet I have all the disadvantages of owning. Man, raw deal. Oh wait, dog friendly landlord, gorgeous condo I could never otherwise afford, and the aforementioned blowjobs. Nevermind. This’ll do.)

Anyway, so … we’ve had this ongoing issue with the hot water heater. Since I moved in. (Apparently since before I moved in, even.) It would occasionally just shut off without warning. It didn’t used to be a huge deal, it would just shut off once in a blue moon, we’d reset it, and voila, hot water. In the winter, it would get worse, shutting off more often, and eventually just wouldn’t stay on at all. You’d reset it, it would go through the startup cycle 3 times, then go “meh, fuck you” and turn off completely. It seems to be more ornery in the winter.

Last winter, we had a plumber, an electrician, and a gas guy come and check it out. “Nope, seems fine to me.” DOES IT REALLY?

And then… all summer and most of the fall, it worked like a charm. Well, ignoring it probably isn’t the best idea, but how would we know if it was fixed? Works fine now…

Of course, come November or so, it decided to play the “I DON’T WANNA HEAT!” game. Believe me, you never appreciate hot showers as much as you do when you ONLY HAVE ICE COLD WATER AND YOU HAVEN’T SHOWERED SINCE TUESDAY. There were a few times I spent an evening boiling water on the stove so I could at least have a 2 inch bath and maybe wash my hair. I got used to showering at night, on those rare evenings I could reset the hot water heater 16 times in hopes that it would stay on long enough to give me a 3 minute shower. I hate showering at night. I also hate 3 minute showers.

You’re probably wondering why we didn’t just suck it up and replace the heater. Well, for one, those things are EXPENSIVE. And the damn thing is only 3 years old. Although apparently not under warranty, because the previous owner of our suite either partook in a scam, or was scammed herself, and either way it was installed illicitly by someone who wasn’t actually affiliated with the company they said they were. Awesome. I’m shaky on the details, but the end result: No warranty. Thanks a lot, previous owner. But also, most of the time it worked fine. Or at the very least, it was semi-reliable enough that if we wanted a shower, we just had to reset the heater an hour earlier. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a reasonable fix that didn’t involve shelling out gobs of cash and possibly having to rip down the wall that was built around it. Previous owner? Something of a ninny. Apparently she worked in film, so “how things looked” was more important than actually doing things right. Case in point: Our bedroom wall is not painted behind the bed. Yes, there’s a big unpainted swath right behind the headboard. Looks great, as long as you don’t ever move the bed…

Anyway, we were a bit cautious about just hiring more people to come out and do random things, because at this point Nick has already put a great deal of money into finding the cause, and thus far we still did not have hot water on demand. I love throwing money out the window, don’t you?

Last summer, I did a website for a (deadbeat who hasn’t paid me, argh) hot water heater professional, and described the issue we had. “Sounds like your flame rod,” he said. I tucked that knowledge away, as the heater was working great at that point. When it started having issues again, I ended up contacting the manufacturers of our hot water heater and described the issue and what we thought it might be, asking if that made sense. It did, they said. Hmm. One place we talked to said it would be weeks to get the part in, and would cost minimum $600 to fix it. For fucks sake. Well, before we blow more money, I want to be sure it’s going to fucking work, because if we spend $600 and it STILL DOESN’T I will shit kittens.

For a little rundown of how our hot water heater works: It’s a gas heater, but has an electric starter (ie, no pilot light) which turns the flame on at the bottom of the heater. As a safety mechanism, there’s a little sensor (the flame rod) that makes sure there is actually a nice blue flame, and you’re not just pouring gas out into your home. Since our hot water heater is in the closet off of our bedroom, this seems like a good thing. When it starts up, it goes through three full cycles and if it can’t detect a flame, it goes into a lock out mode and needs to be reset. Our heater was firing up each time, the flame was present, but the flame rod wasn’t sensing any fire.

I’ve done a lot of googling of our particular heater. Nothing good came up. Then the other day, I did some googling of the problem, without our specific heater.

Jackpot. I found a thread about people who were having the exact problem we were, but with a different type of heater. Many of the people on the thread had been quoted the same $600 to have the flame rod replaced, but a few had another suggestion: Find the flame rod (there’s a little door at the bottom of the heater that will give you access to it) and clean it with a bit of sandpaper or steel wool. Nick’s hands were too big to fit in there, but mine fit fine so I reached in and gave that little rod the best steel wool handjob it’s ever had. (There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.)

And it’s been Working. Ever. Since.

Sweet jesus. Our apartment is WARM again (it also heats the furnace) and I can have SHOWERS IN THE MORNING. I can do anything! I can wash my hands in warm water! I can take off the six sweaters I wear in the evening! (Slightly exaggeration: It’s one sweater and maybe a blanket.) I CAN HAVE BATHS.

It is so good. SO GOOD.

And then this morning, I wake up at my usual 7:30, and hit snooze. The dog does her usual “I’m awake, but I’ll stay in bed and be quiet unless I hear something to bark at.” routine. They’ve been doing roadwork in front of our building for the last couple of days, so she has a little bark every 5-10 minutes or so. I pull her up to the head of the bed to snuggle (and so I can shut her up faster) and we doze a little longer. I hear a weird annoying beeping noise, and assume it’s the construction and be happy it’s not making the dog bark. I roll over and check the time.

“Hon, power’s out. get up, get up, get up.”

Except, it wasn’t fully out. The light in the office was on, as were our monitors. But the computers were off. I try starting mine up, and … only the fan comes on. wtf? My alarm clock is out, the display on the oven & microwave are off, and none of the overhead lights will turn on… but all the lights on the entertainment centre are on. What the hell is going on?

Oh, we have SOME power. Not enough to do anything useful (the tv would turn on, with bad flickers) and amusingly, my super awesome hitatchi magic wand that plugs into the wall and usually vibrates strongly enough to harm a small child was barely buzzing sadly and weakly. (No, I wasn’t “using” it this morning, I was just trying to figure out what was going on with the power.)

Interesting. Well, at least my shower was still hot, if a bit dark, although once again the heater is off (hahahah, FUCKING KILL ME NOW) so Nick didn’t get one. I’m proud of my light solution, though: I have a water resistant bike light that I use on Justice’s collar when it’s dark out, I hooked it onto the shower curtain and voila, vaguely lit shower.

If it isn’t one thing…

But excellent news, the power came on just before we left for work, and HOORAY THE HEATER CAME BACK ON RIGHT AWAY! Oh my god, that is so, so awesome. You have no idea how awesome hot water on demand is until you don’t have it. Forget sliced bread, sliced bread can go fuck itself. HOT WATER ON DEMAND.

And finally, we’ve managed to lose our mail key. For the love of all that is holy… I called the property management company, they said call Canada Post. I called Canada Post, and apparently we don’t have a CP-owned community mail box, they said call the property manager. So helpful. Ok, at this point it sounds like we need a locksmith, but we have a rather “intense” strata at times, and I suspect if I waltzed into the lobby with a locksmith and started drilling willy nilly they’d come after me with pitchforks and fire.

On the upside, when I took Justice out for a pee this morning, I saw our strata president patrolling the (open) garage door — hah, it doesn’t work when the power is out either. He waved me over, I gestured to the dog and said “not with her” (he had his little dog with him, and while she’s been doing EXCELLENT with other dogs lately, I don’t want to push it especially with the strata president) and ran her back inside and went over to chat with him. Apparently the power would be back on soon (it was, about 15 minutes later.) Hooray. But better, he gave me the name of a locksmith who has access to our building, so we don’t even have to be home for it. Yay! My transcripts have been locked in the mailbox for a week now and I want to finish my nursing application.

I hate this stuff, quite frankly. Nick has a severe aversion to talking on the phone if he can avoid it, and while I do too, it’s not nearly as bad as his, so … all right, fine, I make the calls, and he continues to accept my low rent (and blowjobs) in exchange. I can’t quite be sure, but I think homeowning kind of sucks at times.