How Quickly We Forget

The Friday morning before Thanksgiving week I jumped into the shower as usual and got cold shock; the water was at best tepid at its usual setting. I wondered if my wife had used up most of the hot water by surreptitiously doing a load of laundry or running the dishwasher before I got in the shower. Was this some retribution for some sin I had unknowingly committed? No matter, I turned the heat all the way up. The shower went from tepid to a slightly warmer kind of tepid. Since I was already wet all over I proceeded to finish my shower in double-quick time.
After I got dried and dressed I tackled my wife about the possibility of her denying me a hot shower either by accident or design. I got the sort of response that I deserved. She hadn’t done anything to the hot water. I paused to think of what other causes there could be for the ‘hot’ water being cold. The previous month we had our roof shingles replaced after a large hail storm had damaged them, and all the other roofs in our neighborhood. We have a gas-fired water heater so perhaps the roofers had somehow blocked the flue pipe by mistake; seemed reasonable. I grabbed a flashlight and went to investigate.
Our water heater is located in our garage. Like many suburban homes in America, our water heater consists of a large cylindrical tank sitting on its end with, in our case, a gas burner at the bottom. Electric water heaters use an immersed heating element but when our house was built we chose gas. A flue at the top vents the combustion products out of the roof. A cold water inlet pipe is attached to the top of the tank and a warm water outlet pipe is attached at the bottom and connected to the hot water pipework of our home. In this way, the hot water pressure matches the cold water pressure throughout the house allowing for invigorating and warm showers here rather than the dribbling stream of tepid water available in the U.K. of my youth.
The gas burner is controlled by an electronic control box on the outside of the tank that allows you to set the water temperature and relight the pilot light if it goes out. This box has a flashing LED light on it to announce that all is well. It was out.
No problem thought I, it must have blown out when the garage door was open, I’ll just relight it. Relight instructions were printed on a large label on the outside of the tank. No matches are required to perform this task, just turn a knob to ‘pilot’ and press it for a few seconds to light it up. Off we go. I thought I heard it light and the ‘I’m all right Jack’ LED light started to flash in an appropriate way. Job done!
Not long afterward I checked the ‘hot’ tap but only cold water came out. Back in the garage I noted that the LED had quit flashing again. I was joined at this point by my wife who came by to offer advice and to Quality Control my relight procedure. With her ‘help’ reading out the checklist I managed to get the LED to start flashing again. A couple of minutes later it quit again. We now knew we needed professional help.
I seemed to remember that we had this water heater replaced not that long ago under warranty when it quit working. My wife checked the paperwork and it turned out that it was exactly two years and a day since it was installed. While I pondered the serendipity of appliances failing on the Friday before a holiday week and only hours after the expiration of the extended warranty, my wife called the installer who promised to send someone round on the following Tuesday. That’s okay I thought until I realized that it would be at least four days before we could have hot water again. Although freshly showered I distinctly felt that I was smelling the faintest whiff of BO.
When the heater failed two years previously we had used the showers in the changing rooms of our activity center that is only a mile away. But, this is 2020 and COVID is running rampant so the activity center showers were closed. Luckily our next-door neighbors came to our aid and we were invited to shower at their house. All we had to do now was to await salvation and to figure out how we could wash the dishes and do laundry.
Our neighbors stepped up again to solve our laundry problem leaving us with the dishes. We had to resort to our childhood by boiling water in a kettle and hand washing our dirty dishes in the sink. Quickly we became frugal with our dishes. If my wife had toast for breakfast I would wipe off the breadcrumbs and reuse the plate for my toast. Pots and pans got reused too. We got quite good at minimalist cooking to reduce our dishwashing workload.
The plumber arrived on Tuesday as promised and after inspecting the heater he declared that the fault was not just the usual pilot light thermal sensor problem but that the burner was broken. I was dubious but quickly asked how long it would take to replace. The answer was not good. He said it would take less than 30 minutes if he had one, but he didn’t have one on his truck. Not only that, when he called the depot they didn’t have one either; it would have to be ordered from the supplier. Now recall that this was on a Tuesday of Thanksgiving week so when I asked how long it would take I was not encouraged by the reply of “only a few days”.
We celebrated Thanksgiving without hot water for the shower, the washing machine, or the dishwater. Our long-suffering neighbors took us in for Thanksgiving dinner and kept supporting our need to shower and do laundry. At this point, we were becoming somewhat frugal with our change of clothing too. Dishwashing was the one thing we had to do for ourselves but we were getting quite efficient at it. Pots and pans were soaked as we washed the dishes with hot water from the kettle. Then they too were cleaned before all were rinsed and left to drip dry on the counter. They were then dried with a dishcloth and put away until the next time.
On Monday morning we called the plumbing service to chase up the burner. It had not yet arrived but they promised that they would have it for a Tuesday service call. I was not happy as I asked them why they couldn’t do it today. As luck would in the early afternoon one of the supervisors came by with a new burner for our water heater. The plumber who would install it was finishing up another job and would be here within the hour. About 40 minutes later, as promised the plumber arrived. He quickly installed the burner and lit the pilot light. The LED flashed happily but only for a few minutes before going out. It seems that it wasn’t the burner that was wrong. The plumber explained that the problems we were having with our water heater were always caused either by a fault in the burner or the control box. I was slowly seething. When I asked if he was going to replace the control box I got the same reply as last time that he didn’t have one on the truck. He did assure me that they had them at the depot and that he would return on Tuesday to install a new controller.
Tuesday morning came and went but in the early afternoon, the plumber returned, this time with a control box from their ready supply at the depot. He installed the box, flushed out the tank, turned everything on, including the flashing LED. This time it didn’t go out, our hot water was restored. Oh Joy! Sure enough, after about 45 minutes to heat the water, it was a race for the shower.
But, the story is not yet complete. It’s now Thursday and we have had hot water restored for two days. While my wife was out this morning I was heading for the Kuerig when I noticed the dishwasher. Since there’s no light on the outside to indicate that it is in a washing cycle or that it has completed its allotted task, we hang a dishcloth over its handle as a signal. Sure enough, there was a dishcloth; the dishwasher needed emptying, dang! I started my coffee brewing and got down to the task of sorting out the cutlery and putting away the knives, forks and spoons. Then came the large plates and Pyrex dishes. Now the smaller plates and the cereal bowls, and the mugs, cups and saucers. Onward to the kitchen utensils and the hoard of plastic-ware we always seem to use. What a chore. My coffee was not exactly piping hot by the time I finished.
Then I thought about last week when we were washing everything by hand. How quickly we forget how well we are cocooned by the fruits of technical innovation and civilization. How quickly we forget how fragile that cocoon is and how quickly it can crack to leave us in the lurch, washing our dishes by hand.