House Rebirth

Cleaning day 3

Posted by Cuthbert Returned , Friday, May 7, 2010 8:47 AM

Last night after picking up Amanda at work we stopped at the Silver Diner we discovered just down the road from the house. We sat at the counter while they got our take out order ready and thought about how happy we were to be home owners. At risk of sounding cliche....little did we know....


First off we finished cleaning up from the bug-bombs, then we set in to the kitchen. Amanda scrubbed diligently and I pulled the fridge out to discover its water line was dripping slowly. It hadn't damaged the floor but it was gonna need to be shut off. So into the basement I went in search of the shutoff valve. I followed the spider web of water pipes over and around and through until I found the tiny metal wing nut vavle on what seemed to be the cold in to the hot water heater....I scratched my head confused but didn't think about it. Back up stairs to clean Lovecraftian horror we had discovered under the fridge up. As I was getting some oxygen bleach mixed up Amanda had started pulling down the unnecessary drop ceiling over the kitchen. One of the rails clanked to the floor and I decided I would help her take it down first.

We still aren't sure why the previous owners decided they needed a drop ceiling over the kitchen. 30 minutes later we the plastic panels and rails removed and Amanda was switching out light bulbs.

I grabbed the vacuum and started vacuuming up the huge chunks of awfulness that were around the kitchen and then went to add some Hot Water to the oxy-clean as the cold water wasn't cutting the mustard....maybe thats what the yellow goop was? As I left the hot side open on the sink I realized we were not getting any hot water. I thought to myself they must have turned the water heater off. Feeling confident in my reasonably scientific mind off i went to the basement to see what was up. When I reached the bottom of the stairs I suddenly became aware of just how overly complex the secondary tank makes everything in this house. Where there should be only two pipes dealing with the water heater we have 5... and they aren't exactly labeled the best. So I found myself trying to make sense of this tangled mess. Everything appeared to be open so I set about to try and turn up the temperature or make sure the device was turned on. The breaker was on so I started looking for the thermostat. Finally I found the manual in a plastic package that showed that on this particular model there are two thermostats which are behind Styrofoam access panels. Of course the manual doesn't explain the secondary tank that sits next to it for the ridiculous abandoned solar water heater in the attic. Realizing I needed to get back to the kitchen to help Amanda I called Dad. Dad told me to check the temp gauges and make sure they didn't just disconnect the power. Nope it was connected....stumped I finally gave up on the stupid thing for the night and went back to attacking the back of the fridge. As I reached the top of the stairs somewhat frustrated by being beat by such a simple bit of engineering, Amanda told me the fridge wasn't cooling at all.

"Awesome," I said and we pulled the back off to find a fan that isn't siezed up but never seems to turn on. Also a coil that was caked in more filth. Realizing I was wasting my night that was dedicated to kitchen cleaning I set about taking my cold bleach and attacking the disgusting floor. Scrubbing like crazy. Amanda at this point noticed there was standing water in the dish-washer....

"Awesome," I said and I got up and spun the control knob thinking the unit just needed to switch over to drain mode. Nope standing water and I managed to make it foam up by spinning the head. So I checked the drain line for plugs didn't find any and then thought to myself, they put a new garbage disposal in I bet they didn't connect it correctly. At this point I was frustrated enough to realize that I didn't want to dig into this one tonight. Back to the Lovecraftian floor.

As I scrubbed I thought to myself, what if the water heater is having to heat the water clear up to the attic before we get any hot water? This idea propelled me into going downstairs and shutting off the two water pipes that run into the secondary tank marked. Collector return, and Pump/Suction. Thinking I was a genius I went back to scrubbing and in a couple minutes I tried the hot water side of a faucet........still cold, seemingly colder.....probably just because of my frustration at that point.

"Awesome," I said as I went back downstairs to see if I was truly as stupid as this was making me look. I went over to the breaker box and power cycled the breaker for the water heater. A slow hissing sound from the electrical heater.

As I was standing there I noticed there was standing water in the clothes washer.....

"Awesome," I said and thinking to myself what had happened last time I spun the knob, I read the knob and found where it said spin. I remembered the inspector saying that this one didn't drain and wondered if it had been sitting here since then. So I spun the knob over to spin, and sure enough I didn't hear anything. This night was headed down-hill in a hurry. I heard Amanda upstairs cleaning furiously, no doubt getting more and more frustrated with her failing husband. I heard the Red-Green show in my head. Dammit I'm too late for handsome I thought and opened the lid to the washer. I noticed this washer had a small plug switch that detected when the lid was up. I wiggled it a couple times and noticed it felt like a dead PC power switch. I grabbed the screw-driver and took it apart to find that the plastic plug was not sitting in the right position. Assuming this wouldn't work because every other fix I had tried tonight had failed miserably I spun the knob back to spin and closed the lid. I heard the familiar whir of a spinning clothes washer and saw the tub drain. I took a brief second to celebrate the small victory of the night.

I went back up-stairs and set into the awful slime that I had started the night with. I could tell Amanda was pretty upset with me but she would never show it. I kept scrubbing.

Over-all a night that made me question if I was ready for home-ownership. Tonight I'm not going to touch an appliance just gonna attack the slime. Amanda is right we can live without a dishwasher and we have the college fridge to get us by.
If you read this and you come up with any thing I should have tried or done give me a call. Apparently appliances are not my strong point.....