Saturday, December 24, 2011

Merry Christmas and Hug Your Horses!

Well it's been a mighty long week here at the Redheaded Endurance home base. The propane guy came to the rescue Thursday and brought us 17 gallons to get us by until the big truck delivery on Tuesday. Yesterday the heater guy made it out around noon with the hopes of installing a new heater and getting the house turned from ice cave back to humane dwelling. Unfortunately, as usual with our fixer-upper house, things did not go smoothly. The first step of course was getting the old heater out of the compartment on the backside of the house; the repairman disconnected everything and all that was left was getting the flue to telescope up off the top of the heater so we could pull the unit out. This was where things went wrong. The poor guy tried for a good 45 minutes from every angle (even on the roof) and with every tool but could not get the flue to move up off the heater. At that point the flue was clearly not salvageable for reuse with the new heater, which meant the heater installation couldn't happen. The observed holiday Monday means that we can't get a new flue until Tuesday. So the house remains an ice cave and we'll be rushing back from my parent's house Monday to be here Tuesday for the propane delivery and heater repair. The repair guy was actually really great, thank god, he did his best to save the flue and when that failed and he finally managed to destroy the crap flue and get the heater out he took the needed measurements, cleaned up.. then noticed, diagnosed, and fixed (free of charge) the propane shut off valve in the heater compartment that was LEAKING that the other heater guy (with the $1000 higher quote) looked right at and didn't even register. So if he hadn't done that we would have shut the compartment and propane would have continued to leak out and throughout the whole house until Tuesday..dangerous AND depleting our small propane supply that won't be boosted until Tuesday either. Very grateful our cabin bedroom is heated with wood and that I thought to buy a router when I was out in town Wednesday so that I've been able to use the internet on the laptop in the warm cabin.


That's all for now! Looking forward to celebrating Christmas with family and then hopefully getting back to some riding! Merry Christmas to all and hope everyone has a wonderful holiday.

2 comments:

  1. Brrr! I heat with only a wood burning stove, and I completely understand the fixer upper situation! And waiting on repairmen! Good luck, happy holidays and trails!

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