Saturday, September 6, 2014

Getting Out of Hot Water

September 6, 2014

Three months ago I would have been frantic, but tonight I am cool, calm, and collected. I didn't even get to start what I thought would be my day's work; tiling the tub surround in our in-progress downstairs bathroom remodeling. Park church hosted the funeral service for Carol Millward, next-door neighbor and as saintly a woman as can be found. Carol had suffered for nearly 50 years with a medical condition that progressed from walking with a cane to crutches to wheelchair. Her life had been hard, but her faith was strong, her spirit joyful. She was respected and loved, and the church was full. We served the luncheon, and as we were cleaning up, Jeanine found me in the kitchen and asked if I would come to her house. The hot water tank was spraying water all over the basement and Matt needed some help.

I drove home to change, and when I arrived at their house, Matt's best friend Bob was already on the scene. We got the water shut off and proceeded to unhook all the connections, which turned out to be a bit more challenging than ordinary. Matt and Jeanine had bought the house from the estate of the gentleman who used to be the mechanic at the school bus garage. Ken was an excellent mechanic; one of those few who had a knack for figuring things out and making them work, back in the days when there wasn't always enough money to do things quite to code. The pipes to and from the hot water tank weren't pipes at all; 1/2" copper tubing is strung all over the basement, with cobbled up reducers, valves in the strangest of places, and missing couplings, all of which meant that instead of simply shutting off the supply, unhooking the couplings and removing the tank, everything had to be dismantled. Matt and Bob proceeded to do this while I headed to Home Depot to buy a new hot water tank. I talked briefly with Clint, the plumbing expert on duty, and told him I'd probably be seeing him again before the day was out. Me, the prophet!

Back at Matt's, we emptied the old tank, Bob and Matt muscled it up the stairs and outside(there are benefits to being the senior partner in these endeavors), gathered up all the pieces, valves, and assorted reducers, and headed to Home Depot. Fortunately, Clint was still on duty. Clint is an interesting guy. Probably about my age, with a thin, rugged face that hints at stories waiting to be told. It doesn't matter if you know squat about plumbing if you know Clint. One time when I was in the Depot, he was talking with another customer and let slip that some college kids had come in with a list of stuff they needed to make a still. Clint not only helped them find everything they needed; he even gave them some helpful hints as to how to put it all together. They rewarded him some time later with a sample of their product, which he declared to be pretty good.

Matt and I showed Clint what we had, told him what we needed to do, and he proceeded to locate the pieces we needed and lay out the connections till we had it all sorted out. Back home, we proceeded to assemble the cobbled up mess. Had everything been plumbed properly, we would have had a couple fittings to attach. As it was, each supply had at least a half dozen connections, each one a potential leak. You can see where this is going, can't you?

We had to cut some of the copper tubing to make things fit with the additional couplings we installed, so we flared the tubing, put it all together, turned on the main and waited while the tank filled. So far, so good...until the tank was full and the water started spraying from every connection on the outlet side of the tank, a regular Niagara Falls. We shut off the valves and in the process of trying to tighten the fittings, torqued the tubing. This was not going well! Poor Matt! He had a sheath to make for one of his knives, a Sunday School lesson to finish preparing, and no way to take a shower before bed. Turns out, a flared fitting wasn't the best option for the connection, so back down the road I went, this time to the Cassadaga Sure-Fine for a new fitting. Unfortunately, I got the wrong one, and by the time I got back to Sinclairville and realized my mistake, it was too late to even go to Home Depot again. Matt took a cold shower, and we finished the day having lost the battle, but determined to win the war!

So what is there in all this for which to be thankful? Simply this: three months ago, I would have been frantic because my bathroom project would have been postponed for who knows how long, waiting for another block of time to get at it. And, I would have been nervous about my readiness for a sermon the next day. For over forty years, I did my best to keep Saturday nights free so I could get myself in the right frame of mind for preaching the next day. Tonight I walked away from an unfinished plumbing job after struggling all day on it, and I don't have to worry about whether my sermon is ready. All I have to do is pray for pastor Joe. And I will have a warm shower in the morning!

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