When It Rains...It Pours!

We have been bogged down a lot lately with unexpected repairs and expenses. Before our trip to Las Vegas we had the A/C pump in our van go out. Plus, we had to replace our alternator.

Now, our house is having problems. Last night our Central Air stopped working. We finally figured out that it was iced over, and we only had to let it defrost and then it worked again. When we turned it on, I smelt a funny gas-type smell. I didn't know if I was just smelling things, or if it really was serious. I decided to call the gas company to come check it out just to be sure. I called at 11pm. They told us to have everyone leave the house and that they'd be to our house within the hour. I laid a blanked out on our front yard and one by one Jon and I picked up a kid from their bed and laid them down on the blanket. Caleb and Leah stayed fast-asleep through the transfer. Alex woke up, and thought it was fun to be outside in the middle of the night. I stayed outside on the blanket with them while we waited for the gas man to get here. Once he came and I was talking to him, Caleb and Leah woke up. Caleb had the funniest comment when he woke up. He said, "Holy cow! How the heck did I get out here!" Once everyone was awake we played "I Spy" and told jokes to pass the time until it was safe to go back inside.

After a thorough check-out of our home it was discovered that our water heater was vented improperly...and had been since we've lived here! The gas man said that our phone call had saved our family's lives. We had a fairly new water heater (only 6 years old), so it wasn't putting out a lot of CO2, but as it aged it would have been putting out a lot more CO2 and eventually it would have asphyxiated us all!! How scary! He turned our water heater off and deemed it unsafe to operate until it was fixed. At least we were safe to to back inside the house.

So, Jon had to take the day off today to put in a new water heater. We needed a shorter one so that the slope of the vent would be correct. We will all sleep better tonight, and every night knowing that we are no longer at risk for carbon monoxide poisoning. We will also be purchasing a Carbon Monoxide detector VERY soon to have in our home.

I am so thankful that Jon is so handy and knows how to fix and install just about anything. It has saved us so much money through all of these repairs.

So, our bathroom had taken a little bit of a back-seat to all of our other repairs and problems, but it is still making progress. The shower is almost done being tiled. Then, we just need to tile the floor of the bathroom and hall. I can't wait to see the finished product and I hope it can get done quickly now (and it will happen a lot faster if nothing else goes wrong). Here are a couple of pictures. One of the bathroom shower tile job, and the other (not so good quality because of poor lighting in our cellar) of Jon installing our new water heater.