Jan 11
Sunny, bright and -23 c outside. Another day, get the dogs up, get them outside and fed. Tried to put booties on, but since they are very hairy dogs and a pain to put the booties on, I just let them out. The cold does not seem to affect them, a Lagotto and a Poodle , unlike other more hairless breeds we have had. Then I get to feed myself, the usual scrabbled eggs on toast, one of my favorite meals.
For once I am a bit early and it is only 8:30, just have to cage the dogs and go upstairs and start working. Then the phone rings, it is my mother-in-law, the water is frozen can I come and fix it? She is in a mobile home attached to my house for services like water and electricity. The Water inlet to the mobile home is a copper pipe going from the ground into the bottom of the house. The freezing happens about once a year depending on the age of the heater. I built a double walled tin area around the water pipe area and filled the in-between with expandable foam. This gives a nice box to help hold heat but it does not prevent heaters from wearing out.
In order to service this, at these temperatures, one must dress correctly. Gathering lighting and cloths suitable for climbing around under a mobile home at -23 c, I head out. It is very bright and the sun is low and the ground is crispy. Crawling under I find the heater is not heating, and a switch to the high heat setting makes it go again. That should do it. Just have to wait for the little room to heat up and water will flow. So I get to start work a half hour late instead of a half hour early.
An hour later I am wondering why I have not got a phone call saying the water is going. Usually it works very well and things get flowing with in an hour. So waiting another hour and no news, it is still not running. So gear up again, and take in a hair dryer to try ensure I can direct some heat. A half hour later of trying to get the hair dryer to warm the pipe, I gave up and went and got a heat gun / paint remover. Lower air volume but much more heat. Since the pipe is copper there is no way I can burn it. Another half hour and I managed to heat the whole pipe and get water flowing. And of course my hands are very cold, as I had to take off gloves for a few moments to do those things you can not with gloves on. Painful ...
Then I got to do some work ...
