It's 4 a.m. What am I doing awake? I got up at two, half asleep, to pee. I crawled back into bed all warm and cozy and became progressively more and more awake. The Bumble Bean came to snuggle and sleeping Bean snuggles usually have a hugely somnolent effect. Not this morning! Bing! I am not only wide awake but thinking about work. What a waste this insomnia is.
Also, I am cold. Our heat is not working again. This time it is not because I blew up the boiler in a pregnancy induced haze of bad judgement. This time it because of something called a Limit Control Switch which may be a valve rather than a switch and which needs a plumber to do something about. We finally discovered this after having the heating guy come (who by the way should have been a plumber) and giving the Big Bad Bean a ridiculous song and dance about the boiler being fine (I'll accept that) but the problem with system actually being the air pressure release valve on one radiator in the kitchen. Pshaw! However, radiators are not the province of the Big Bad Bean (who is actually in charge of Zombie Destruction) and he dutifully recorded this and told me later.
So, if the radiator is fine, it must be the thermostat. I don't know much about thermostats. Quick, look it up. Hmm. Electrical. Not good. Electrical in our house is a disaster. Big Bad and I changed a light fixture when we first moved in and found that the old one was attached to 7 wires, all of them brown. We did actually manage to figure out which ones were supposed to do what and dutifully re-wired the new fixture. Turned on the breaker, threw the switch, started a fire, blew the switch out of the wall, turned off the breaker, called electrician.
Since we fired that electrician, I wandered through the Yelp reviews and called a new one. He came out and said the thermostat was fine but that the Limit Control Switch needs to be replaced. Apparently this switch, or valve, translates the thermostat setting in conjunction with the thermostat's temperature reading and tells the boiler when to fire. I had never realized there was an intermediate step that did that. I assumed it was the job of the thermostat itself. Middle management is really getting out of control when it invades your heating system.
No help for 5 more hours until the plumber comes. I love this plumber. He replaced our hot water heater in August because it stopped working. Hot water heaters are also in my responsibility range rather than the Big Bad Bean's. I traced the water line from the street to make sure I had the right one, entirely missing the giant number 2 written on the side which told me I had the wrong one. I couldn't trouble shoot the problem (because I had the wrong the bloody water heater) so Yelped a plumber.
He was also confused, but given the age of the water heater we decided between us that it should be replaced. Fortunately, when he came with the replacement, he noticed that the one we were talking about replacing had hot water in it, became more confused, traced the water line more accurately than I did, and discovered that I had been trouble shooting the wrong one. He was very gracious about it and replaced the actually broken one (ooh nice hot water) and fixed my water pressure problem that I hadn't even told him about.
The Big Bad Bean was home when the electrician came and wrote down what the thing was called and that we needed a plumber. On Wednesday evening when the heat stopped working again, I asked him if he had called the plumber and before he could answer, the Bumble Bean said, "of course not." Hilarity ensued. Anyway, I wasn't going to call the plumber on Thanksgiving when it was our own damn fault we hadn't called him more proactively. So I called the day after Thanksgiving. When I gave him the address, he said, "Oh, I remember you."
I wonder what that means. Does he remember the idiocy of my wrong hot water heater diagnosis? The side saddle next the hot water heaters? The basement full of miscellaneous weaponry? Is he going to be laughing at me when he comes tomorrow? Oh well. As long I get heat again, I think I can stand to be laughed at a little. It's not like it doesn't happen all the time as it is.
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