In hindsight, perhaps buying a farm in December wasn't such a great idea.
When we moved here, the first few days were nice and sunny; now however is a completely different story. Winter has certainly arrived with dreary weather and grey days. It's hard to get motivated to get out when it's raining and craptastic. Hard to envision what I want to do with the yard and the land. And really hard to stay happy and positive when I feel like I'm being cried on.
Back to house stuff.
I managed to finally fix the hot water heater. The first step of the fix was to drain the tank. It's a 50-gallon tank so it took a while. The primary problem was the hot water heater is under the house in a crawl space/old cellar. Couldn't run a garden house up and out because of that pesky gravity so I had to fill up buckets and haul them out myself.
Once I got all the water out, then I was able to change out the upper and lower heating elements. Better to fix them both than have to do this again even though I know it was the lower element.
But that didn't fix the problem. When I ran the water, it would be hot for about 12 minutes, and then just cool off.
Dang.
So, googled more information about hot water heaters and the information I found seemed to indicate that the problem was with the thermostats. So off to the hardware store again - this time I tried the other store on the other side of town. Picked up the upper and lower thermostats and managed to replace them both in about 20 minutes. Easy enough.
Gave it an hour and tried filling the tub again. I set a timer for 15 minutes and when I came back the water was STILL nice and hot. Probably a little too hot - I need to go back and adjust the temperature down a bit so no one gets burned and I don't screw up the pipes but we're all very happy we can take hot showers and baths now.
Newest problem is a leak in the office area. The ceiling had some damage which we noticed during the inspection, but the area tested dry. Of course it did - it hadn't been raining for three days when we came to do the inspection. It's a small leak and I think it's where the roof of the office addition meets the wall of the house. I got some of that spray on rubber leak stuff. When it stops raining, I'll climb up on the roof and get that covered.
Also have to make some repairs according to the home owners insurance people. There's a brick missing in one of the chimneys (which we can't use anyway but whatever right?) and some repairs to a set of stairs (top step was replaced with plywood - hello stupid idea) and there's no handrail but those I can do. Climbing up on a slate roof to fix a missing brick? Not me.
We need to find someone to help us chop down some trees. The scary Locust trees, while they all look dead, are covered with an odd green moss and are starting to grow small branches that have REALLY BIG SPIKES/THORNS! I've never seen a tree like these...
Perhaps they were planted to keep invaders at bay?
Regardless, they are too big, too broken looking, and too close to the house. They have to go
This weekend I need to head up back to the old house. I need to pack up as much of the garage as I possibly can fit into the back of the truck and I have to do it without getting stuck in any snow. I think the weather advisory was changed and the snow is more likely to hit further west of us so that's good. I don't think anything in the garage will be harmed by being rained on but I just don't want to have to do all the packing in the rain. Joy.
When we moved here, the first few days were nice and sunny; now however is a completely different story. Winter has certainly arrived with dreary weather and grey days. It's hard to get motivated to get out when it's raining and craptastic. Hard to envision what I want to do with the yard and the land. And really hard to stay happy and positive when I feel like I'm being cried on.
Back to house stuff.
I managed to finally fix the hot water heater. The first step of the fix was to drain the tank. It's a 50-gallon tank so it took a while. The primary problem was the hot water heater is under the house in a crawl space/old cellar. Couldn't run a garden house up and out because of that pesky gravity so I had to fill up buckets and haul them out myself.
Once I got all the water out, then I was able to change out the upper and lower heating elements. Better to fix them both than have to do this again even though I know it was the lower element.
But that didn't fix the problem. When I ran the water, it would be hot for about 12 minutes, and then just cool off.
Dang.
So, googled more information about hot water heaters and the information I found seemed to indicate that the problem was with the thermostats. So off to the hardware store again - this time I tried the other store on the other side of town. Picked up the upper and lower thermostats and managed to replace them both in about 20 minutes. Easy enough.
Gave it an hour and tried filling the tub again. I set a timer for 15 minutes and when I came back the water was STILL nice and hot. Probably a little too hot - I need to go back and adjust the temperature down a bit so no one gets burned and I don't screw up the pipes but we're all very happy we can take hot showers and baths now.
Newest problem is a leak in the office area. The ceiling had some damage which we noticed during the inspection, but the area tested dry. Of course it did - it hadn't been raining for three days when we came to do the inspection. It's a small leak and I think it's where the roof of the office addition meets the wall of the house. I got some of that spray on rubber leak stuff. When it stops raining, I'll climb up on the roof and get that covered.
Also have to make some repairs according to the home owners insurance people. There's a brick missing in one of the chimneys (which we can't use anyway but whatever right?) and some repairs to a set of stairs (top step was replaced with plywood - hello stupid idea) and there's no handrail but those I can do. Climbing up on a slate roof to fix a missing brick? Not me.
We need to find someone to help us chop down some trees. The scary Locust trees, while they all look dead, are covered with an odd green moss and are starting to grow small branches that have REALLY BIG SPIKES/THORNS! I've never seen a tree like these...
Perhaps they were planted to keep invaders at bay?
Regardless, they are too big, too broken looking, and too close to the house. They have to go
This weekend I need to head up back to the old house. I need to pack up as much of the garage as I possibly can fit into the back of the truck and I have to do it without getting stuck in any snow. I think the weather advisory was changed and the snow is more likely to hit further west of us so that's good. I don't think anything in the garage will be harmed by being rained on but I just don't want to have to do all the packing in the rain. Joy.
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