Monday, October 20, 2014

What's next?

It seems that this season has been the "What's Next to break" season here.

It has gotten so that I don't even remember what went first.  sigh

I know that the coffee maker started leaking water a while ago and I was just living with it.  Make the coffee and clean up the extra water on the counter.  But I finally asked hubby to fix it for me (after I took it apart and found out the cause).  He did try to fix it, but alas his fix only lasted for one pot of coffee.  I'm pretty sure that the plastic pipe he used wasn't heat resistant and it's probably melted in there now.  sigh.  So I replaced the coffee maker.  Not a big deal as they're cheap.  I ended up buying a 5 cup maker as I'm the only one who drinks coffee here.  Darly only likes expensive coffees with loads of sugar in them.  Hubby likes his caffeine in a can with bubbles.

Next since winter is fast approaching we decided to finally get our humidifier fixed.  We knew that the sylinoid  (no idea how to actually spell that word...it's the valve) was gone.  Hubby tried to find one but apparently you have to be an official plumber/hvac person to get your hands on one.  Luckily I know a guy.  They sent someone out and while he was working on the humidifier we wanted our furnace (that came with the house in 96) checked out to see how much longer it had to live.  OOPS!  apparently it was already "dead" or would kill us.  The o-rings were popping off and the hvac guy had to condemn our furnace.  YIKES!  He gave us 4 choices for a new furnace.  1) replace what we had for the equivalent version.  Here we would probably see some savings in our heating bills as our old unit wasn't running correctly.  2) same efficiency but it was a two blower system that would run low most of the time but bump up to higher if we needed it.  3) a higher efficiency model that would require a total overhaul of our duct work and then #4) was even more efficient/pricy and also required the duct work overhaul.
In the end we went for just switching out for what we had before.  Our bills weren't all that bad before and this seemed like a good fit for our family.  So they changed out the furnace, fixed the humidifier and when the hot water heater was turned back on... busted a pressure valve on it.

Okay, busted is a bit harsh...what actually happened is that that valve was tripped and constantly leaking water.

What really needed to happen was for us to replace the pressure reducing valve for our water line.  We have no idea why our city water comes into our house at 140psi.  Hubby researched and seriously considered replacing the valve himself as he is pretty handy plumbing wise.  But he was worried that he might mess it up (apparently online info made it sound pretty tricky).  Now he is kicking himself because he watched the guy do it and could have done it himself easily.  We paid too much for that job.

Next up, the refrigerator was leaking again.  I was under the impression that in order for us to have water through the door on our frig you needed a filter.  Every time the filter needs replacing it leaks and to install and remove you damage the filter housing.  So last time we had to replace the housing.  But this time we removed the filter and by accident learned that we didn't need a filter.  The water is still working without the new filter that is waiting on top of the frig.  hummm  meanwhile my wood kitchen floor is toast and we should replace that one day.  oye!

So while on vacation we turned off EVERYTHING!  (okay we didn't totally shut off the furnace as we didn't want to freeze the pipes) but we did shut off the water heater and the water while we were gone as we didn't trust anything while we were gone.

Came home to a regular working house...and then last Friday hubby goes to reheat his dinner and the microwave has died.  I'm pretty sure its the magnetron, AGAIN.   Sigh!  I am so sick of paying for things built for the dump! 
I want to just get someone's old microwave that they're replacing because it doesn't match their new kitchen, but hubby wants to buy a brand new one.  sigh  I really think that we'll get the same life out of either and the used one will cost us less.

3 comments:

  1. I'm so sorry about everything breaking. How frustrating... and expensive! I hope nothing else goes out on you...

    Yes, we'll have a pot of water on the wood stove to humidify.. we aren't quite done getting things reorganized for this new way of heating. :)

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  2. This is the kind of stuff that makes life so frustrating! When we go through stuff like this I get on one of my "I hate technology" band wagons, but there's no way to do without the stuff!

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  3. When are you going to blog again? I'm posting like 3 times a week over here!!! :)

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