Saturday, May 19, 2007

The next two months... plans C, D, E

As mentioned earlier, the city refused to turn on our gas so that we could have hot water when we moved back to the house. Plan B was to rent our next-door-neighbor's downstairs so we could have hot showers, but one of their daughter's is coming back for the summer and would like to have the downstairs, and we really don't want to put them out.

Plan C was to put in an electric tankless water heater. This would have been sooooo nice, killing two birds with one stone: giving us more hot water in our master bathroom so that both of us could shower at the same time without running out of hot water, and allowing us to have hot water during the time we have no gas. However, it requires 220v service, and we don't have that in the place it would be necessary. Since the drywall is now up, it's too late to fish new wires downstairs. (How ironic, isn't it?) So onto plan D. We're going to try to get a tankless gas heater installed instead of upgrading our water heater, as I think that will solve our long-term hot water problems in a better way than making our existing heater bigger.

Plan D is portable propane camp shower. Solar showers don't work, because Kurt likes to shower in the morning, and the water wouldn't be hot by then. But portable propane-driven camp showers could work. So we're investigating using them.

Plan E is to rent a short-term furnished place nearby. I have a line on a couple of places, but nothing concrete yet. It turns out that it's much more difficult to rent if you have a dog, even a cute little 12.5 lb border terrier. Some people consider her some sort of animated toy, but others still think she's a dog. So it just depends.

Plan F, which I hope we don't have to go to, is to shower at work.

Hopefully by the end of this weekend we will have an answer!

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