The little drip in the tub spout.
Customer said it started last year. Just a little drip. Then the diverted lever to the shower got stuck in the on position. No big deal they said, we don't really take baths anyway. As long as the water was coming out, and the shower worked, everything was fine. Then it started getting cold. Then really cold. Single digit temperatures. We woke up one morning and it was unusually chilly in the house. The furnace had stopped working overnight. We called a service to come look at it. The tech had to order a part. So we drove to the store to get some space heaters. We put one in the bedroom and one in the living room. That night around 2 am, we got woken up by something that sounded like a gun shot. The pipes in the shower froze and burst. Ice cold water was going everwhere. All across the second floor, down into ceilings of the first floor, it was raining in our house. It took us 20 minutes at least to find our water main.
I could bore you with calcification indicators, weak points and degraded connections, regular maintenance checks, general utility awareness in your own home, but I trust these are reasonable assumptions you've made. I could pat myself on the back and say, well, thats good for business and the dumber people are, the more money I get.
But in reality, I don't wanna be standing in someones kitchen first thing in the morning in the blinding cold while water freezes across the surface of everything they own. Watching the trauma unfold on their faces. They have to move out. We have to gut alot of this. I have to point to things that they love, and say thats trashed, can't save it. I have to explain that they need to pack up their kids and move out for the next few weeks. I gotta tell these folks their insurance may not cover all of the costs so when your parked in a motel or your parents tonight, you may wanna look into another line of credit, home equity loan, or a personal loan. Claims can take time, better safe than sorry. I have to say to regular blue collar working class folks, to their face, 45 thousand dollars. Thats a crippling number for so many people. I try to pick them back up and keep their spirits high, you're gonna get a brand new bathroom, nice new floors, it'll be done how you guys want and you'll get to pick out something that suits your style more.
I can only imagine how it works for therapists and doctors. They probably see people all the time and think, how did you ignore all the signs? All while knowing responsibilities and income dictate what we can and can't do about it.
The drip was an indicator, the lever was an obvious warning, the small maintenance task which would have uncovered the corrosion, wasn't a big deal. The larger problem remained unseen as long as the small problem was ignored. A small job to replace some valves and lines. The regular furnace check would have uncovered the bad fuse that blew the transformer. Literally a 5 dollar peice so small it can barely even be considered a part. The correct conditions for catastrophic failure were met. The 20 minutes search for a shut off valve dumping hundreds of gallons of water into the structure. A year ago, it would have been $750-1000 to keep everything running just fine, but this was not the case for my next door neighbors. They learned some hard lessons in their first home. First one was to call me when something breaks or isn't working right. The second one was to not ignore these things and reference the first lesson.
So if you have indicators, reach out to your technician. Maybe you've just felt low. Check the ole pressure gauge. Maybe its time for a few checks. You're not a house, but your self care is much like continued maintenance. This can look like taking a nice walk in the woods to reduce stress, or talking to your doctor about medication or a new treatment, or reaching out when something isn't right and you don't know how to fix it. Especially when you don't know how to fix it. Identify a good technician. Take care of yourself, and change the furnace filter. Trust me, It's time.
