Good to have a handyman around

I was out on my bike this afternoon, November 12th. It was sunny, but the temp was only 52. Add a sweatshirt and jacket and I'm ready.

The basement restoration is proceeding. The big foundation crack (not the source of the flood) has been filled. Old electrical fixtures removed (and also a large pile of wires that no longer connected anything). New wiring and light fixtures up. The fuse box has been replaced with circuit breakers. Waterproof barrier paint will start being applied to exterior walls tomorrow. Next week the shelves and floor will be installed.

The day Charlie started my digital thermostat went blank. Charlie said the batteries must be dead. I had forgotten it doesn't have a power line to it. But once the new batteries were in place the thermostat wouldn't recognize the furnace. I’d seen that display after furnace repairs and the repairman only needed to reset the furnace. But turning the furnace off and on didn't fix it and Charlie and his furnace friend had no idea what "reset" meant or knew of any buttons to push. Having a furnace guy come would cost as much as a new thermostat, so Charlie installed a new one. The old one was 18 years old.

A couple days later I woke up to a cold house. Fortunately, Charlie was there a couple hours and found the furnace switch off. He says he may have bumped it. It was snowing that afternoon when I left school.

When Charlie cleaned out the wet stuff in August he bumped the hose from the clothes washer. It wiggled enough that water sprayed onto the floor. I rerouted the hose to shoot into the laundry tub and not be susceptible to bumping. Shortly after that I began seeing trails of water from the tub to the floor drain. I figured water was splashing out of the tub. A couple days ago I was looking over the progress Charlie had made. There was the trail of water. But I hadn't run the clothes washer. I had just run the dishwasher just above it. I was able to track the water trail up the wall to the drainpipe coming from the dishwasher.

The next morning I told Charlie about it. He got a stool to stand on and reached up to investigate the rusty pipe. A piece of pipe came off in his hands. He was pleased that was the day his plumber friend was already scheduled to come to do a thorough job of cutting tree roots out of the drain tiles. No problem to ask him to bring a few extra pieces and replace the broken pipe.

I'm fortunate these problems appeared while Charlie is here.