Hydrastone

Sepco Hydrastone. Hydrastone. Hydrastone? Keep that in mind.

Today we did a bunch of stuff. We got the hot water heater replaced. The old can was leaking in two places. Hydrastone go bye bye.

Brett came over with a new one. He's a subcontractor for Home Depot, and he installed our new electric water heater in about an hour.


He also told us that our circuit breaker was not up to code. See all those wires behind him? I'd be surprised if most of the electric in the house was to code. Apparently, we need a 30 amp breaker, or else the warranty on the new heater will be void.

I told him it was all fine, since we had an electrician coming later in the morning. So when Brett left, we had a new hot water heater, but he had the breaker switched off, because we needed to upgrade it.

You can see it coming can't you? Wait for it. Wait for it. Our electrician never showed up. So we have this new hot water heater in the basement, but no hot water.

Sue spent most of the day setting up our living area -- unpacking boxes into the kitchen, getting the upstairs bathroom livable, and emptying boxes of clothes into the upstairs closets.

I moved stuff around in the downstairs so the dining room is free of boxes, disassembled the security system a previous tenant had installed in the house -- wires wires wires galore -- and worked up in the attic.

I mentioned the attic in an earlier post. This is sort of what it looks like...


...and it also has this big antenna thing in it...


...presumably the inside part of the 20-foot-long aerial we found in the backyard that must have protruded from the roof back in the days before dishes and fiber optics. (Up on the roof, there are four snapped metal cables that must have served to hold it upright.)

You may wonder why I ventured into the attic on an 80-degree day to mess around with fiberglass insulation and some weird antenna thingy. The attic was absolutely scorching.

As it turns out, the hot water heater we replaced is insulated with stone. Yes, stone. Ah... Hydrastone. So it weighs about 425 pounds according to Brett. Home Depot doesn't remove those heaters, because they're too heavy.

So we're in touch with a salvage company in Pawtucket, and they're going to come down and cut up the heater and haul it, along with the old washer and dryer. We want to get as much metal stuff ready for their visit to our house next week, hence my foray into the attic.

We also tag-teamed the backyard grass -- me with Julie's push mower and Sue with the hedge clippers -- listened the Red Sox lose badly on the radio, and bought a split box-spring, because our queen-sized box-spring won't fit up the stairs.

At some point, I drew some diagrams of the house. I realize you guys probably don't have a sense for the floor plans, and maybe some context would be helpful. I have yet to come across our scanner while unpacking, but when I do, I'll share the layout.

Time to run to Boston for the Lara-Linds-Nick-Sasha Inaugural Deck party. Happy Saturday, all!