Hot water's back

So I went over to work after lunch. (I had given the "relief plumber" - the guy who works weekends there- my cell phone number). Got all my data entered, even if at the end I was getting a little punchy and (a) entering data wrong and having to go back and fix it and (b) beginning to think things like "Tridens flava flav" (there is a plant named Tridens flava) were funny.

Came back home, hung out online for a while. Then my cell phone rang (glad I left it turned on - I usually turn it off while at home). It was the plumber, he was on his way.

After he groaned a bit about the old-house kludge* of the water heater being in what was, apparently, once a closet (probably a subsidiary-entryway closet: the laundry "room" is in the old side entry of the house, and the water heater is in a doorless closet right next to it), he got down to work.

(*I am now wondering if the internet-term "kludge" - usually applied to a fix that is clunky and imperfect but gets the job done - is somehow etymologically related to the German adjective klug, meaning clever.

Also, when I was a kid, I remember my brother making up "insults" to hurl at me (we weren't allowed to use certain words to each other) and one of the made up insults was "Klug" (rhyming with mug) which bothered me far more than it should have - and then, one day, when my dad heard him use it, he noted "In German, the word klug (but he used the proper pronunciation) means "clever" or "smart"." My brother quit using that insult shortly after)

As is my habit, I got out of there and sat in the living room, so I don't seem to be hovering. I heard some scraping noises, and a few clicks.....and then he came out.

"Do you want the bad news or the good news first?"

Crud I thought quickly, The bad news is I need a new heater.

So I said: Oh, give me the bad news first. (I probably should have realized: he was kind of grinning).

"The bad news is you called me out for something you could have done yourself. The good news is it's fixed and it's heating now. Here, let me show you...."

So he showed me what went wrong - an override switch, which I didn't even know of the existence of (I mislaid the instructions to the heater, and the guy who installed it never showed me it) had tripped, perhaps, he said, because of carbon build up (that was probably the scraping). He said what it takes is pushing in the override switch, pressing down the red (gas) knob, and pumping the black (starter) button until a flame catches.

("Just watch to be sure you get that flame; I've seen gas build up and blow that little window - there - out")

He also told me that if the switch failed totally, they could most likely replace it. But if the unit holding the gas and starter switches went bad (apparently it happens), replacing THAT is within $100 of the cost of a whole new heater - "But we don't encourage people to replace the whole heater until it totally fails."

So, it was kind of an expensive thing for something I could have done myself (their service calls are not cheap, but at least I didn't pay a special weekend rate), BUT it means I have hot water again NOW and I don't have to shell out some $650 more for a whole new heater. Oh, I know I will have to eventually, but I'm glad it's not right now.

I like these plumbers because of the "here, let me show you...." and also the straightforward explanation of "Here are the things that can go wrong and here are the ones that are not-too-expensive of a fix." Also, I think these plumbers are pretty entrepreneurial - they seem to have a lot of hustle. The guy commented that I was his last job of the day and noted, with a grin, that he had accomplished six jobs in the day. (And, I presume, he gets paid a cut for each one - so the more he does, the more he earns. This is an outfit with numerous plumbers and a main office so I expect the main office gets part of what I pay the guy, to cover overhead, and then he gets a portion of it)