The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly!!!

Hello, Everybody!

We know, we know that today is July 4th! We do not have much to celebrate. Wait until you hear what happened at Ellen's house today! The day began with joy, until Ellen walked down the hallway by the hot water heater. The carpet went, "Squish, squish!" Well, we went on to the parade that we had planned to watch. It is always fun to see people we know, plus we love to see the former students that we know. The Sun Bowl Queen used to sit in Sharon's third grade class.

The parade was nice, but in the back of our minds was the hot water heater. When the parade was over, we headed back to Ellen's. We quickly made lunch. Sharon began the task of soaking up the water and trying to find the source of the water. We determined that it was indeed the hot water heater, and headed to Lowe's. To make a long story short--Ellen had to buy a new hot water heater. The bottom line is more than $700. Do you know that it costs three hundred dollars to install????? Oh, if only we had young muscles again!

"What happened next," you ask? Well, the water was still dripping, and not just a little, but A LOT! Ellen has been hit with a double whammy! There was water dripping from the back of the air conditioner. She has refrigerated air and the furnace/blower, sit in the same closet area as the hot water heater. It was not a pretty sight, especially after having just paid for the hot water heater and installation----which isn't going to be until Monday because of the 4th of July weekend!!

We soaked up more water and Sharon began her investigative work. She really should have been a plumber/electrician/carpenter! Ellen loves to see her figure things out, but she takes on a whole different personage when she is looking for the source of trouble. SHE WON'T STOP UNTIL SHE GETS TO THE BOTTOM OF A PROBLEM!! Well, we put pans in the crawl space under the unit to catch the water. But when Sharon took the vents off to look underneath, some genius had laid installation and secured it with ROCKS!! Actually, seven or eight of them. Can you believe that???? Grrrrrr.....

Well, Ellen is afraid of what the bill will be for the air conditioner. She promised not to cry all night and Sharon promised to continue thinking about the problem. The puzzling thing is, the air conditioner is working just fine.

Now, this morning (Saturday) Sharon came up to Ellen's and got a long handled brush to put up into the PVC condensation pipe outside the house. You would not believe how much mud and junk, and rocks began to trickle out! We think that the condenser unit could not drain anywhere but Ellen's carpet. After numerous times of trying to clean out the drain, we went to Sharon's house to get the snake like the plumbers use. Sure enough, she was able to get the snake to go in as far as possible. When she pulled it out, all kinds of stuff came out. Actually, it continues to come out along with the clear condensation!!!!! Hooray!! We have checked under the unit all day long, and there have been no more drips. The carpet is dry, and the wood is dry as a bone. Yea!!

We will let you know what happens on Monday when the real plumbers show up to remove and install the new water heater. We have our fingers crossed because we were really afraid that there was something terribly wrong with the air conditioner. Maybe not.......

Until next time. . . . . .