Hot water...how we take it for granite! Our house is heated by coils that run hot water under the tiles, like this:
The water heater is not a huge round monstrosity but is about the size of a piece of carry-on luggage. Such a small thing can cause such a big crisis in our house. It began on Saturady morning when I got in the shower. There must have been enough hot water in reserve because I was able to get rinsed and about to put the shampoo in my hair but was stopped with a stream of cold water on my body. I turned the nozzel down to see if it was a temporary but discovered it wasn't. Then I called out to Günter to see if he could reset the water heater. I was shivering in the shower getting more and more irritated by the situation. The last time this happened to me too. Why doesn't it happen to Günter? Anyhow the kids came in and I was asking Günter what was taking so long and if he could hurry because I was freezing. Finally he decided he couldn't fix it and I got out. Luckily I didn't have to rinse in icy water like the last time!
What it meant is that none of us could take a shower/bath on Saturday or Sunday and the guy will come out today (Monday) to fix it in the evening. I don't have any friend here that I would consider asking to let us all come over and use their shower/bath--it is a personal thing and people don't all keep their bathrooms clean enough for others to come use at a moments notice.
We came up with an alternative plan...go to the swimming pool. Which we did around 5 pm. I was a little embarrassed about how I looked in public, but as soon as I could, I got my hair wet. After the swimming fun we had the not-so-fun experience of showering publically. They don't have seperate stalls but it is a big room and all ages of women were showering without any privacy. You have to push a button to turn on the water and it sprays for about 2 minutes so after showering Jenna (Günter took Niki) I had to do myself AND try to keep track of a 3.5 year old energetic girl (that wouldn't do anything I told her).
I hope the repairman comes with all the parts tonight and I can have a decent shower!
Posted by Krista at November 5, 2007 04:38 PMOh, that SUCKS! It happens all too often over here -- we have an old oil burner and the valve that refills the water in the system is screwy, so you have to manually flip a switch to fill the system and then turn it off or else the oil burner won't run and there's no heat or hot water. In an ideal world, Spouse would do this everytime he goes in the basement to do laundry . . alas, we do not live in an ideal world. So I spend a couple hours planning to bathe [myself or the kids] and the time comes to turn on the tap and there's nothing but cold water.
It makes for a cranky mama FAST, eh?
Yay for the pool!
And those coils under the floor are neat.
Posted by: Meira at November 6, 2007 04:08 PMOh boy --- time for camping skills! I always have a spray bottle on hand that can dampen hair and bring new life! I sure hope the system gets repaired fast! Isn't it amazing how something like this disrupts our whole life? But it sure does!!! When Scott was on his mission public bathing was their only option at times. Blah!
Posted by: Dana at November 6, 2007 08:11 PMI found your blog about the hot water heater fascinating...we don't have any thing like that here! Did you get it fixed? I hope so! I don't think I could have taken a "public shower" at the pool like you did....no I don't think I could! :) Hope the children are well and will stay will stay well for a long time. We are all fine here, our weather finally turned cold today...it feels so good outside. Have a good week!
Posted by: Joan at November 7, 2007 09:52 PM