Saturday, February 4, 2012

1 degree weather and no hot water

One day this week it was 1 degree when I walked to school at 9:30. Brrrrr! It has been so cold here lately. It's great to be able to walk to school everyday, but I haven't appreciated it as much this week :)

Because it was so cold, I went to wash my face Thursday night and there was no hot water. After washing my face with ice water, I decided to wait on the shower, hoping it would magically fix itself by the next morning. No such luck. When I told my boss at work the next day, she laughed because I'm the fifth one to be without hot water in the last two weeks. This is not a laughing matter, haha!

It turns out my pipes were frozen :( By the time I got home on Friday, the landlord's wife had faced a heater towards the boiler on my balcony. When I walked in, both the faucets were running. Later she came by and told me (translated through her son) that I was to keep the heater pointed at the pipes until the hot water came back. The son told me it would take 3-4 hours. Turns out 14 hours didn't even work!

I hadn't take a shower in two days at this point, so I had to go to a sauna/public bath house. You can only imagine, that in itself was an....experience. Oh well, at least it gave me something to laugh about.

It was already almost time for bed. Leaving the heater on and the faucets running all night seemed dangerous. Sooooo, I set my alarm each two hours, to check the heater and the faucets. What a pain! Each time, the water was still frigid. I kept having dreams that the hot water came back :)

When I got back to my apartment Saturday afternoon, I had hot water! The landlord's wife came in a couple of hours later and when I showed her it worked, she practically jumped up and down! She squealed clapped and expected me to share in her excitement, haha. I think she was happy that her and her husband wouldn't have to pay for the repairs. So, I clapped with her and said "Thank you!" I am really appreciating the hot water today!

No comments: