So, things have been interesting for the last couple of days.
Also, the folks renting the property are awesome.
So is our plumber.
Let me just back up a bit…
Continue readinghot water tank
Really?
First, the good news. There is more of that. 😀
This morning, I woke up with no pain in my right hip.
None.
It was like I’d never had a problem with it.
So weird!
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Got it
Today, I took advantage of a much warmer day (we reached -7C this afternoon) before the temperatures plummet again, and headed to a nearby city to see if we could get a replacement hot water tank.
I’d already phoned and had instructions, but we’d never been to this location before, so my daughter and I took the time to look around. We have been discussing a building project for the summer, that I will blog about later in the year, so we went to see if we could price out stuff like mortar and insulation.
It turns out this is not the hardware store we could go for these materials.
Then I went to customer service with my sticker from off our hot water tank.
In maybe 5 minutes, paperwork in hand, I drove around to the back of the building, to a particular shed, where a new replacement tank was ready and waiting for me.
It now sits in our dining room, waiting to be installed.
It was so fast and easy, I wish I’d thought of going somewhere else, long ago! Not one person I spoke to thought of it, either. It was certainly worth the hour and a half total in driving time!
One of the amazing things about it is how light it is. Compared to the old tank that got replaced shortly after we moved here, which is so heavy I intend to dismantle it and remove it piece by piece, rather than risk damaging the stairs with the weight, or someone getting injured taking it around to the other basement and hauling it out that way. Assuming it could even be moved to the other side of the stairs in the first place.
My daughters and I had wondered about how the old tank was brought down there in the first place. It occurred to me that it was probably installed while the new part of the house was still under construction. The new part basement would have been completely open, except for the support pillars, and there would have been just a wood burning furnace in the old part basement on one side, and the stairs on the other. The tank was probably brought from the new part basement, through the space now filled by the electric furnace.
Getting rid of the damaged tank will be much, much easier!
So now we just have to pay for the installation. I suppose we could install it ourselves, but I want the plumber to look at our well pump, too. Now that we don’t have to come up with the money for a new tank (the price was $419, before taxes), on top of the cost of labour, we’ll be able to get it done at the end of this month!
I am so looking forward to getting that done!
The Re-Farmer
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It’s been a few days
I haven’t made a solid post in a while, so it’s time to catch up on things.
The short version is pretty simple.
I’m tired.
So tired.
Which is actually one of the reasons I bit the bullet and saw the doctor a few days ago.
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We have a trailer… sortof
Yesterday, being Sunday, my daughter had a short shift and I was planning to stay in town again. I ended up meeting with my older brother and his wife, and we were able to spend a couple of wonderful hours together.
They are such great people!
At one point, we got to talking about how useful it would be for us to have a trailer, and how expensive new ones are. Apparently, there had been a small trailer by the garage, but it disappeared before we moved here.
Then they remembered.
We do still have a trailer.
Sort of.
They told me where it was, so when I did my evening rounds before it got dark, I went looking for it.
There it is!
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Matched Set, and hot water woes
When doing my morning rounds, I used to get followed by at least Beep Beep and Butterscotch. Sometimes, other cats would come along, but it was usually those two in particular. That changed after they had their kittens. Butterscotch no longer even likes to be picked up anymore (I think it has become uncomfortable for her) and she’s become a lot more stand-offish. Lately, I’ve been seeing her as infrequently as the male cats.
Beep Beep is a lot more homey and, while she doesn’t like being picked up as much as she used to either, it doesn’t seem to be out of any sort of discomfort. She has started to follow me again in the mornings, and the kittens are beginning to expand their territory.
Even Big Jim came out to see what was going on.
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It almost worked (updated)
For the last while, we’ve had a sulfur (like rotten eggs) smell coming from our hot water.
There are several possible causes for this. Because it’s only there when we run the hot water, that comes down to only two possible causes.
One is the rod in the tank needs changing. Since our tank is less than a year old, we know that’s not the cause.
The other is bacteria. The smell is caused by hydrogen sulfide from the bacteria. Not an uncommon problem, and only slightly more common on well system. The bacteria itself is harmless. The smell is just unpleasant.
The way to treat the smell from hydrogen sulfide is hydrogen peroxide. This is a septic friendly treatment, too.
Getting the hydrogen peroxide into the hot water tank is the issue.
I found some instructions and videos online. The basic way to do it is;
First, shut the water off to the hot water tank.
Next, drain some of the water out.
Then, open up into the tank at the cold water pipe (where that is in the system depends on the tank, it seems) and pour in about 1 cup of hydrogen peroxide per gallon. So for our 40 gallon tank, it would need about 4 cups of hydrogen peroxide. After that, the tank is closed up, the water turned back on, and it’s left to sit for about 3-4 hours to kill off the bacteria. The peroxide breaks down over that time, so by the time it’s used, there is no longer any hydrogen peroxide left.
I don’t like the idea of opening the tank.
In reading some comments under one of the sites I found, a different way to get it in was suggested.
When draining the tank, the water will automatically stop flowing after a while, because a vacuum forms. What was suggested was to tape a hose to a faucet, then put the other end into a container with the hydrogen peroxide. The hot water tap is turned on, and the vacuum suctions the peroxide from the container into the hot water tank.
So that’s what I tried.
This is a sink in the basement, which we never use. It doesn’t even have drain pipes; just a bucket under the sink.
Locally, we could only find small bottles of peroxide containing just under a cup, so we got 4 of them, which I emptied into one container. The hose is from an old set up we had for our aquarium that I used to get water from our sink to a 5 gallon bucket. It fits into the tap. I tested it after Gorilla Taping the hose in place and were are no leaks.
As you can see in the picture it did work.
For a bit.
However, there just wasn’t enough of a vacuum to take up more than about 1 1/2 bottles of peroxide.
That’s likely not enough to get rid of the bacteria, but I really don’t want to open up the tank if I can avoid it. It’ll just mean some air gets in the tank, which will come out when we run the taps later.
I just don’t want to mess with our new tank!
The Re-Farmer
Update: Well, several hours later, and the smell is gone! It looks like it was enough peroxide. Maybe we caught it early enough, before it got too bad, since we haven’t had the smell for very long. Here’s hoping it stays away! 😀
