The new furnace is hooked up, the heat’s back on, and the house is warm. Hurrah! So now I have to point the camera at the other corner of the basement:

In July 2004, I described some problems with the house we had bought, including…

"…a rusted water service coupling BELOW the main shutoff valve. That coupling made a strong plumber turn pale, tiptoe slowly to his van, and roll slowly and carefully away, not starting the engine until he was a quarter-mile from the house. "Sweet Jesus, I was just two days from retirement!"

Well, three and a half years later and our time is up. When I came home, the connection was leaking copiously BELOW the main water shutoff in our house — which means that the water had to be turned off at the street. Dan, our head plumber from Swisher, came out with his son after dinner and turned our water off at the curb, using a long T-handled thing called a “curb key.” So we don’t have any more babbling brooks flowing into our basement… but we don’t have any water, either.

The service coupling was just a few molecules away from rupturing this whole time, so maybe the vibration of putting in new furnace pies did it. Or the stress of an unheated house overnight. Or maybe, you know what? MAYBE THE CAT DID IT FOR REVENGE. Anyhow, it’s time to replace all the pipe between our basement and the street.

All things considered, this is a pretty good time for this to happen — we knew it was gonna go SOMEtime, and so it went now while there’s a crowd of fellows all ramped up on the layout of our basement. And when you’ve got two spare houses full of grandparents on the street, we’ve got NOTHING to complain about. I am a little nervous about the prospect of backhoe-ing out the hill in front of our house. Gulp!