You know when you get into the shower in the morning, let the cold run out, and enjoy that perfect temperature? Well this week that perfect temperature decided to be the temperature of a hose, outside, in the winter. My showers were cold, and I mean cold enough to take your breath away cold. The lake would have been warmer cold.
As I’m sure you can figure out, our water heater went this week. I think it was Monday, but it could have been Tuesday night? Honestly my brain is so numb I can’t remember. I’m any event, it went in the night and I awoke the next morning to a bit of water in our bathroom. My husband got up to check things out and that’s when he left wet footprints… in our carpet! I had to leave him to deal with this water (thankfully there wasn’t as much as there could have been!) and headed into work, dropping the kids off at school.
I showered that morning and said to my husband no rush on it, let’s figure this out as I wanted to see about a tankless one. I figured it wasn’t that bad, I could shower in that for a few days. Well, it was the next morning that showed me what life was actually like without a water heater. That first shower? There must have been traces left in the tank that I “enjoyed”.
The first day was spent vacuuming up water and trying to take the old one out (we’re both still working full time with running kids to events). This meant turning off the water to the tank at the main shut off. That would have been great if 15 years hadn’t caused something to seemingly get stuck inside the ball valve, allowing things to still leak. Then there was the joy of undoing the old heater when things had somehow fused. More trips into town, more parts, and we were undone.
Did you know that when there is no tank you have to allow water to run from your tap in order to have pressure at all in the shower? Neither did I until the other day. Otherwise I would hardly get wet let alone get the shampoo out of my hair. Let me tell you though, the shampoo happened only once, no way I was doing that again. The next day I wet it as much as I could in as short a time as possible and today there is a hat.
So we got a tank, deciding to get the same as what we had so we didn’t have to move a bunch of extra things. My husband has now soldered where it was once siliconed and let loose in the 15 years, allowing the water to leak.
Once we finally got the new tank in place however, we discovered that the 40 gallon tank we’d had was 40 US gallons whereas the new one was 40 imperial gallons. It’s seemingly a small detail but a definite difference. So today my husband bought the parts to close the gap is the pipes and tomorrow he will exchange them for the correct size.
Life can be an adventure, often in ways we wouldn’t have chosen ourselves. This past week has caused me to pause a bit though and consider how much we take for granted. Though with six in our household we could easily run out of hot water, we could simply wait a bit, allowing things to recharge. We never really had to worry about our hot water as it is pretty much always there.
And honestly having hot water is a luxury we all have come to expect. In reality it wasn’t all that long ago there was little to no hot water and one would have to boil water to draw a bath.
We have become far too comfortable with so many things in our lives, expecting things that really are a blessing, a gift. What was once a luxury has become a “necessity”. We take so many things for granted, expecting that it will always be there or simply be handed to us because we deserve it, missing the fact that we can actually survive without it.
Did I enjoy my having hot water? No. Was I able to wash myself each day? Yes. Am I incredibly thankful for my next hot shower? You’d better believe it! I totally took the hot water for granted in the past, simply expecting it would always be there. It’s only when it’s not that we realize how much of a blessing it really is.
What are some things in your life that you take for granted? What are things you should be thankful for?