The Beat Goes On

It just never ends around here. . .really, it is hard to imagine how this is going to end up. . .I can pick up where I left off, which would be to say that we just got the shower back up and running and how did it happen anyway. . . I think it was just in the course of fixing the bath plumbing -- no, I know, it was when he was installing the new dual flush toilet we foolishly purchased at Costco (I mean, we couldn't pass it up, Brian had already purchased a (used, of course) elongated-bowl toilet at Second Use for $50. (!) and here was a brand new, dual flush, elongated-bowl toilet for a mere $80. (!!!) How could we resist??) So anyway, he had installed the toilet and was in the midst of installing the new integrated sink/countertop (that I had told him not to buy because I want the cabinet gone from the bathroom, but as usual, my words fell on deaf ears. . .) so the new sink was going in and at the same time we were cleaning out the disgustingly clogged drain, and of course the process was grueling in its involvement and Brian could not get the sink hooked up -- at least 4 trips to Island Lumber and the newly-unclogged drain was still leaking. . . we were getting frustrated, but little did we know, our frustration was just beginning. I think I decided to do the dishes in the midst of the process only to find there was NO Hot Water -- which was one thing we thought was safe, since it was a relatively new hot water heater installed within the last year. . .by now you likely know the drill, and our problems began with the beginning of the trouble-shooting process. Brian couldn't find the shut off breaker to the thing -- it was hard-wired and it did not appear there was a breaker on the property that controlled that power. Of course, it took quite a while to go through all the breakers, not only in the house, but in the store, in the apartment above the store, in the post office, in the garage, in the crawl space below the store. . . there are a lot of ways to control the power to this place, but none of them were hooked up to the hot water heater. . . So luckily Brian has a few (?) tricks up his sleeve and he managed to disconnect the HWH without curling the remaining hair on his head any more. We packed up the thing and hauled it off to True Value where it came from with a full warrantee (one wee bit of luck) Long story short, we installed the new HWH and it STILL didn't work, there was no power to the thing and we had no idea where the power was coming from anyway, so we were stuck -- high and dry -- ended up being 4 days without Hot Water until Brian was able to attach the wiring of the HWH to the dryer outlet, so now we don't have a dryer, but we do have hot water -- and so the beat goes on.