Sometimes it seems like the simplest task is a journey down the yellow brick road; frought with twists, turns, wicked witches, flying monkeys, and seemingly impossible obstacles. Sometimes it's just too easy...
So Tuesday night, it was about 11:30PM, Tom was in bed reading and became aware of an out of place sound. Being the intrepid warrior protector that he is, AND out of just plain curosity he went to explore. The water heater (calentador de agua) was spewing water from around the diffuser cap (that's a piece of something at the top of the water heater that has some seemingly apparent reason for being,,, well other than spewing water in the pre-dawn hours). He gallantly turns off the water and silently cleans up just enough and then creeps back to bed without disturbing my dreaming slumber. Being the earlier riser of the two of us, me about 6:30 him about 9, I get to see what wasn't cleaned up and am left to wonder just what the heck happened here last night.
OK, no big deal about not having hot water, I am accustomed to washing both clothes and dishes in relatively cold water; and we have a small electric water heater under the sink in the guest bathroom that we can turn on for showering. In case you haven't heard we are in a seriously cold snap, down to the mid 50ºf's at night. Holy criminey who could take a cold shower in 60º frigid temperatures. So what to do what to do. The obvious, and easiest thing would be to just go buy another and call a plomero to have it installed - but No! We are only 28 months into a 48 month guarantee.
So first, dig out paperwork...OK - the service number is in Mexico City, and we only have cell phones. There are 2 local authorized service numbers. I call one and get a recording of prompts; If you want X dial Y, If you want W dial R, etc. Not ready for that just yet - put down cellphone phone, get paper, pencil, dictionary, stiff drink...
Redial - actually get through the prompts and to a real honest to goodness spanish speaking service rep...Yipes! Explain problem, listen to response, ask spanish speaking service rep to please repeat the entire explanation but much slower, por favor. OK, now I get it - I must call the MX City number to make the claim.
Great! call Mx City, get a lovely spanish speaking customer service agent; explain entire story, give make, model, serial number, date of purchase, etc. OK I am actually understanding things, this is seriuosly scary, and ego boosting at the same time. Within 48 hours someone will call us to set up and appointment to come by to examine the water heater and determine the nature of the problem; is it our problem or covered under the warranty. We need to have a copy of the bill of sale for the repair agent. Geesh, this seems easy...just need to wait for the service call and set an appointment, Cool!
Well, Wednesday came and went, no service call, no problem, they said within 48 hours. Then today, Thursday about 8:30am, what to my wondering ears should I hear but our doorbell, me in my nightie, Tom still in bed, the puppy still groggy so no bark was to be said? It rhymes, don't roll your eyes!
There at my door are 3 service guys with official uniform shirts, and marked big truck with tools and everything, GUAU (that's WOW for you non-spanish speakers)
So I ask for a minute to get put together....OK it took 2 and I wasn't very put together, but at least you couldn't see through the outfit I put on, and I washed the what the f*#% look from my face... Oh, and I woke up Tom.
So, they come in, only two of them, I inquire after the youngest, and am told he will stay there to guard the truck and stuff, we pass through the house and I notice the main guy, el jefe, taking quite a look around, no worries, we did a lovely job on the house, and yesterday was cleaning day.
The two of them get the ladder, look at the heater, discuss, switch places, look some more, discuss... by this time Tom has thrown on some clothes and has joined us.
El jefe starts a discussion, he is the son-in-law of the woman from whom we bought the house! Wowee Zowee, Now we recall that he was at the closing.
He and sr. Technician discuss some more and agree that the seal around the difuser cap has un hueco, a hole, the solder has an apparent weakness. No problem, he writes up that the heater is defective and authorizes us a replacement. Zowee Wowee again.
Disconnect and install fees are not covered by the warranty; he does indicate that there is a small problem with the initial installation in that a pressure relief valve was not installed, and since we use a pressure system we REALLY need to have one as not having one could cause soldered seams to blow. Oh, by the way, He can do the install, with needed pressure relief valve for about 600mxp. Our response - You bet, we'll call as soon as we have the new water heater here. Do we look stupid or what!
So Tom is off, with disconneccted and dusted off faulty water and will return with shiny new water heater.
Stay tuned for tales of installation....
Monday, March 9 - Installation Update
On Thursday Tom took the old water heater and the paperwork to Home Depot - after a bit of a delay because they apparently had never seen one of these returns before he got a replacement. Exactly like the old one.
Friday morning, while I was off to spanish class he installed the new water heater - couldn't have been any easier since it was the exact same model and all the copper pipes were already exactly where they needed to be.
We met after my class and went to the Picasso exhibit, then out to lunch - Very productive day all around!
Life is good!