As most friends here know, I have a couple of ongoing health management things. These few things require a tub and hot water.

On Sunday evening, I was taking a bath, and the water stopped. I thought, “Huh. Water main break or something.” It’s an old city, happens now and then. Our plumbing is only five years old and we have an on-demand hot water heater the same age, so I just sat there a minute … until J said, “There’s a bunch of water out here on the floor.”

That, of course, was the end of my bath. After drying off and collecting my wits, I took a look at the “closet full of a million pipes,” and found this, with hot water gushing out of it —

O

O

The lead from the water heater had separated from the pipe that takes the hot water to the rest of the house. The clamp on the top broke. I actually thought, “thank the plumbing deities for that,” because it looked like an easy fix.

You may or may not know — I don’t do plumbing fixes. Won’t touch ’em. But. I do understand most plumbing things. To confirm my suspicions, I had J go down to the basement to turn the main waterline off-and-on while I checked the bazillion valves in the plumbing closet. Looked like I was right. It was already evening, so we decided on cold water sink baths in the morning, and I Scarlett O’Hara-ed it until the next day.

O

O

Called my good friend and contractor (who also happens to be our next-door neighbor) Monday morning. He ran by the hardware store to buy a few things, and it was fixed by noon! Couldn’t have taken him more than five minutes. He only wanted the cost of the supplies, but of course I doubled it and made him take it. Because calling in a plumber for something so simple and stupid would’ve cost three or four times that much. Let alone, having it fixed in less than a day.

So, as I was thinking when I first saw it, if we were going to have a plumbing issue, I’m glad it was a simple one.

I was back in the bath by 12:30!