Friday, March 16, 2007

Yikes!!!

The handyman just came out to look at the well & the water pump, to see if he could figure out why I have no water coming out of the faucets.
Next to my water pump is a little heater, which automatically shuts on/off to keep the enclosed pump/pipes area at a certain temperature. This is so the pipes don't freeze in the dead of winter. (This is common in states with really cold winters). What's SUPPOSED to happen is that the pipes are kept at an above-freezing temperature, then the heater shuts off until the temperature drops again. This whole pump/pipes thing is kept in a corner of my garage.
What happened is that MY heater's temperature activation switch broke, and it was stuck in the ON position-- which meant the enclosed area kept getting hotter, and hotter, and HOTTER... The handyman said that when he went out to look at it, the surrounding metal was so hot he couldn't even touch it, and it was a wonder the wood enclosure & insulation hadn't caught fire yet. (!!!!!!)
Since spring is almost here, and the freezing nights are pretty much over for now, he completely removed the heater so the well-pit could cool down. On the back of the heater, I could see the metal was all discolored from the extreme heat.
This is scary; I could have had a fire! And since my home is right next to my garage, surely everything would have caught fire.
So... I still don't have water. I need to call the well pump specialists and have them come out and replace all the parts that got fried by the broken heater.
That probably won't get done til next week, then! Accghhh!
I'm on my way to my parents' house right now, to shower and do a load of laundry, and explain this whole mess to them.
Right now I'm just grateful that my home is not smouldering.
Really, then, it was almost a blessing that the water pump broke, because otherwise I would never have known there was a problem. The heater would have just kept heating everything up until eventually the wood & insulation WOULD have caught fire.
Scary stuff.

6 comments:

Mo and The Purries said...

I'm glad you can look on the bright side of this and count your blessings!
Hope your parents can help out ($) with the pump repair.
Just don't unplug it and then forget about it 'til next winter and have frozen pipes!

Unknown said...

Wow. You are lucky indeed. First the roof blowing off, now this...you must have some house karma that needs clearing. Good thing I'm still in California. I can handle that for ya.

Desert Songbird said...

Wow - talk about your close calls! Glad you could see the silver lining. Here's hoping you get your water problems fixed soon.

Travis Cody said...

That's pretty scary. I'm glad there wasn't a fire.

It's good that you have a positive attitude.

STAK said...

thank Buddha i live in the south..........

Janna said...

Morgen: Yes, thankfully, the parents did help.

Steven: Yeah, send all the good karma ya got. What's the postage on that??

Desert Songbird: It *was* a close call, wasn't it... (shudder)

Travis: Yup, things could definitely have been a LOT worse.

STAK: Buddha? They worship Buddha down there in South Carolina?

Mr. Fab: Or Ashton Kutcher....