Two weeks later, and finally recovering from the effects of the power-outage. The power was restored last Thursday morning, almost a week after things went dark on Thursday night. This past Thursday, I finally got the water company to come out and shut off the water. I couldn't get a plumber until Friday. He replaced the main, but didn't have a key to turn the water back on.
"No, we don't have anybody else in the area with a key." The water company won't turn on my water, as they tell me the stop-box outside belongs to me.
Like I wanted one of those. So, Friday night - oh, wait, I forgot about the U-joint that failed on my old truck on Friday afternoon, grounding it. Anyway, I borrowed a water key from a friend of mine on Friday night, and tried to turn things on. No luck. That thing is about three feet down, and covered in dirt. I couldn't even tell if I got the tool in the right place. So, I tried again this morning. The guy from the water company had a handle on his key at least two feet long. The handle on this one was about one foot. Without an equal amount of leverage, I coudn't turn my water back on. Finally, I found a piece of steel bed-frame downstairs, and duct-taped it on to the key to make a longer handle. I had just about given up hope, when I happened to get the tool in the right spot, and with the extra leverage, the valve turned very smoothly. So, we've got light, heat and water again. Now to clean up the mess in here from one week in darkness, and from two days without water.
On the bright side, I have found that Goof Off safely removes the paint from my newly uncovered hardwood floor. Once we can get the molding around the doors and install and paint the baseboard, we can actually move into the house we've been camping in for months. Not that I can haul any molding without my truck.
I know what some of you are thinking. "Shouldn't the plumber have had a key to turn the water on and off? No need to wait for the water company." You're right. You see, this house came with a "home protection plan." I call them, and they send out a local contractor. They sent out County Plumbing, St. Charles, Missouri. Remember that name, that you may hate it as I do. One of these doofuses came out on Monday, while my wife was at home, and said they couldn't turn off the water without digging up the stop-box, which is located right in the roots of a large tree. Their price was twelve-hundred dollars, and this would not be covered by my plan. I think they actually were afraid something would break, and it would be their fault. Or maybe they wanted to replace the whole main out to the stop-box. Whatever. At this point, I thought the stop-box belonged to the water company. So, I called them thinking if they had to dig it up, it would be on their dime. Of course, no digging was necessary, just a turn of the water key. So, if they had sent out some other plumber to begin with, I might have gotten someone who would just turn off the water, replace the old valve in the basement, and turn things back on. One hour, altogether, no time spent without water.
