November 11, 2012

Outside Temp: 24 F (We were down to -10 last night and it was up into the 30's today, just beautiful.  Then the winds came back...)

What I cooked today:
Burgers and Tater Tots: I really wanted to use up the rest of my ground beef, before it went bad.  So, I subjected my family to a nice dinner of tater tots and burgers.  I threw in some corn, to add some color, and Ryan went crazy for it.  He probably had 3 servings!  Woo hoo!

Update:
We started the day under the house.

Patrick got up around 8:30, and there was no water.  Ugh.  Frozen pipes?  Crap.

I went outside and checked the breaker for the water pump.  It seemed to be okay.  So, I sent my beloved husband outside and under the house, to figure out what was wrong.  We have been working on the skirt to the house, and the cover to the under-house access was not on completely.  It was at an angle, which would allow multiple rodents and small mammals (such as cats and raccoons and bunnies) to find shelter under our house.  No, this was not on purpose.

As a result, the under-house area, where the plug for the heat tape (which is designed to keep the pipes warm), was completely covered in snow.  Apparently, a 8 inch opening can let a lot of snow into an area.

We scraped out all the snow, and the heat tape was totally cold.  So, I flipped that breaker, and the heat tape seemed to come back to life and started warming the pipes.  Patrick climbed into the crawl space, brought a small space heater into the area, and I closed the hole with a piece of plywood (so he wouldn't freeze too badly).  Have I mentioned the spiders yet?  I hate spiders.

While underneath the house, Patrick tried to get the water pump working.  It was cold as ice and would not turn on.  We flipped the breaker again, to no avail.  By this point, we were getting a little nervous, so Patrick called the expert, his dad.  When I went to get the phone for him, I noticed that the power was a little funky.  It was kind of flickering.  But, it seemed to stop, so he called up to Grandpa's house, and I went back to check on the breakers. 

The breakers all seemed fine, but, as I walked back into the house, I noticed that some lights were off.  The microwave was on, but Ryan's room, the computer area and my bedroom was off.  Of course, my bedroom is where the phone is plugged in, so Patrick's phone call was cut off pretty quick.

I went back outside (have I mentioned that there is about a foot of snow out the back door in the area where the breaker panel is located?  That means I have to trudge through this snow, every time I want to flip the breakers.  Ugh, of course, my boots are only 9 inches high, so the snow goes into my boots every stinking step.  ), and looked at the panel again.  I held my breath and tried to flip the main breaker.  It had no problem flipping back and forth, but nothing changed.  We grabbed the cell phone, to re-call Grandpa.  He said he would come down and rescue us. 

Patrick asked me to re-check the breaker, and re-flip the main breaker.  So, I headed back out into the snow, and re-flipped the main breaker.  Amazingly, it worked this time.  All the power came back on and we were back to just having no water. 

So, now I'm lying on the floor of my bathroom, talking to Patrick through a register on the floor.  He is directly below me, under the house.  And suddenly, the water starts flowing in the sink.  It lasted for about 10 seconds, then shut off.  But, since water came out immediately, that usually means that it's a pump problem, not a frozen pipe problem. 

He spent the next few minutes flipping the power back and forth on the pump.  We remember having this problem last year, and the pump needs to be about 3/4 of the way to 'ON', but not all the way.  After another 10 minutes or so, the pump came back to life, and we had water.  Woo hoo!

Patrick crawled back out of the hole, and grabbed some foam insulation to cover it up completely (no more visitors under the house with this hole... other holes maybe, but not this one.  The water was still working as Grandpa walked around the corner to save us. 

Although there was a fair amount of cursing the house for the hour or so that we spent fixing this water problem, we were kind of proud of ourselves for getting it fixed.  And I was exceedingly grateful to be able to get Ryan showered and to get laundry done today.  Oh, and the bathroom is useful as well!