It just didn’t work out that way!
We are technically challenged, that’s for
sure! Our friend Joel came by to program
our new Charter controller. We couldn’t
understand the directions and figure out how to do it ourselves…sad, we know! After spending 2 minutes completing what we couldn’t,
Joel then showed me how to handle a problem on my desktop computer.
Joel is also one of our ‘cat sitting’
friends. In preparation for our summer
vacation, Laurie started walking him through her exacting instructions for
taking care of our cat, J.D. But, as we
walked through our master bedroom and bath to one of the ways to get to our screened in porch at the
back of the house, we discovered a ‘little’ problem!
As we came through the bathroom to the
screened in porch, we all noted this awful “dead rat” odor! It was the dreaded propane smell that we’d
been warned about if we ever experienced a leak... It smelled so bad that our cat J.D. wouldn’t
even go out on the porch! And he really loves that porch! We use propane
for our dual-fuel HVAC unit, our water heater, fire place and for our outdoor
grill. Unlike J.D., our immediate
thought was ‘will we blow up with our house?’
So…we put out an emergency call to our propane
provider. After warning us about the
cost of an emergency call on Sunday, Mike (Tellico Propane) made the drive to
our house. After checking and
rechecking, he found that the regulator on the tank was the culprit. Then the real fun began… As you can see
above, our 500 gallon tank is buried and the control valve is inside that
protective dome shown above.
Note: The photo shown above was taken the next
morning after the digging, transplanting and filling in was completed…and all
of our ‘evil’ thoughts had dissipated.
While Mike went
to get parts, we scrapped off all of the mulch around the dome and loaded it in
a wheelbarrow. Then we cut down the
landscape grass next to the dome and Laurie dug up, divided & replanted 36
hostas! Did I mention that the humidity
was through the roof! Sweat was pouring
down…
This was the culprit…the regulator valve for
our propane tank. Mike needed to remove
the dome so he could get to this unit, and then have the room to use the proper
tools to remove it and tightly replace it. The
clay was packed around the dome and then Mike discovered that the dome had a
welded piece holding it on the top of the tank.
Thanks to his persistence and desire to please the customer, after a
long time and a lot of sweat, he finally popped the weld joint and was able to
replace the control valve. Then it was
time for me to help fill in the hole and then replace the mulch…
But wait!
That wasn’t the end of our ‘easy paced’ stress-free housecleaning Sunday…
See that dome out in a corner of our
backyard… That’s our tank that works in conjunction with our local sewage
system. See the dirt spot near the tank
in the pine straw! We’d had about 4” of
rain the previous day and our downspouts are buried… Water was just bubbling up
like a little spring from that spot and we assumed that it was just the rain water draining off the land from all the recent rainfall. Mike from the propane
company checked it out and told us that it was sewer water!
Too bad that we didn’t take a picture
while the water was still bubbling up!
It did look like a pretty little spring…
In any case, another emergency Sunday call was made, this time to the
local water utility! He confirmed the
problem, turned off the system and scheduled a crew to dig up the pipe and
fix the problem. It was later discovered
that a seal had been blown and it had been leaking for some time.
The upshot of all this was that no housecleaning
or yard work was accomplished… We ended up scrambling on Monday in order to get
everything done in time for our family visit… Such is life…but thanks to our
local utility and especially to Mike from Tellico Propane, our Sunday surprises
were resolved and all was well when the company arrived.
Just click on any of the photos to
enlarge them…
Thanks for stopping by and sharing our
stress filled Sunday with us!
Take Care, Big Daddy Dave and Laurie
Wow, what a fun day. Seems like those things come in bunches and at a bad time - the silver lining - it could have waited until Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteWhew........what a day, hope it wasen't toooo costly!!
ReplyDeleteoh my gosh!!! I hope you have Uneventful days ahead! guess you are lucky, really!
ReplyDeleteDear Dave, I think it was a good thing this was all taken care of before the company arrived! Blessings, Catherine
ReplyDelete