changing times

We had a minor catastrophe last Friday. When I ran my bath, the water pressure was low. I even went to see if Dad was running water, but he wasn't. I mentioned it to Ray and he noticed it later in the day. We thought we would check with neighbors and see if they were having problems, so we would know if it was just us or a larger problem. Late in the afternoon, after 5, Ray noticed that there was no hot water. He usually runs a little warm water on Cameron's dinner. He went down to check and there was an inch of water on the basement floor! The water heater had sprung a leak and been leaking for at least most of the day. He shut it off and bailed bucketsful of water and carried them upstairs and outside to dump them. He called DiPietro and left a message, but they didn't call back until Monday. We met with a guy named Shane on Tuesday. He was from Climate something, not diPietro. Yesterday some men installed a temporary 20-gallon water heater, so we now have a little hot water. 

It's a longer story, though. DiPietro installed "splits" in December. This is a new "in vogue" technology. It's basically a heat pump that connects to wall-mounted units. We put one in our den (where we watch TV in the evenings), one in our bedroom, and one in Dad's living room. They are meant to replace the hot-water heating system that uses baseboard radiators in the "new" part of the house--the back where I work on the desktop computer, and where Dad's bathroom and study are upstairs. The boiler was very old and was giving off too much carbon monoxide. They said they could not do the insulation in the walls until we replaced it. I was hesitant because it gets very cold here and I did not think heat pumps would keep us warm enough. The appeal, though (aside from it's supposed to be more efficient and save money) is that they function as air conditioners in the summer. We shall see. 

In spite of the new technology, it was often very cold in our house, especially in the mornings, especially in the back where I like to work on the computer first thing when I get up. I was pretty annoyed at myself for buying it and at the salesman for possibly misleading us. And the alternative was a new efficient water boiler that would include a water heater! And cost less! So we were calling diPietro to see if we could still get that, since our water heater had now died. But what actually happened is somehow Ray got a rival company run by a guy named diPietro who is brother to the first DiPietro. Apparently, they had some disagreements in how they do things, but have similar businesses. I thought maybe the original company could be talked into giving us some discount because they misled us and we were giving them more business. But this company, of course, will not. This guy, Shane, said they would never have sold us splits to heat the main part of the house (well, it's not really)...and they only sell xyz brand, not the ones we got...

Now we have to find the right document to prove we had the energy audit...so we can borrow some more money (hopefully, the bank will want to lend it to us) to pay for the system we should have gotten. And we'll have plenty of heat and hot water, in time for summer. And, maybe, we'll enjoy our splits providing ac.