Home Improvement

The Mister and I have lived in Higley Groves West for nearly six years now, and while most of our energy is directed toward improving and completing Morrison Ranch, we also devote time to improving our own place. One of the minor irritants we have battled from the beginning is hot water.

Physics and engineering are the purview of The Mister; so to understand why this happens, you would have to ask him. (I can, however, produce a fine spreadsheet on the economic outlay of the old system versus savings on water costs under the new system.) The simple facts are that the hot water heater is located in the garage, and my kitchen sink is located as far as possible from that water heater. So, to use hot water when washing dishes, I have to wait a really long time - 5 minutes or more! - for the water to get hot. As a Desert Dweller who understands the intrinsic value of water, as well as an accountant who understands the dollar cost of water, this just seems sick and wrong. We've talked about options over the years; we considered adding another hot water heater outside the kitchen window (not terribly aesthetic, but useful), and occasionally I've tried to educate myself on recirculation systems. The short term solution was to wait until the Number One Son took his shower in the bathroom down the hallway, and then tap into the already flowing hot water. This was window dressing at best, however, because the Number One Son would arise and slam a bowl of cereal while waiting for the shower water to heat up, so we were still wasting gallons and gallons.

I'm happy to say that, prompted by the demise of our water heater, we finally got to the point of being fed up and decided that any solution was better than no solution even if it wasn't the optimum solution. So we called the plumber and he installed a hot water recirculation pump in no time at all, and voila! It really works!

The only downside is that the cold water is no longer as cold as it once was; but I had accepted that quirk of AZ living years ago. In Wyoming, when you turn on the cold water faucet, it is COLD. In Arizona, you might get colder water in the winter, but in the summer the best you can hope for is cool. So I've already adjusted for that.

By the way, I overheard the Mister telling the plumber that the houses in Higley Estates come standard with the built-in version of the hot water recirculator, so apparently we weren't the only ones fighting this battle. You're welcome, Estates residents...

My next home improvement project - because you know it never ends, there is always something - is to figure out how to keep the batteries in the smoke alarms fresh. Those batteries have yet to die in the light of day; they always wait until the dark of night when we are soundly sleeping and then scare the liver out of you when they set each other off. But the alarms only scream for a few seconds, lulling you into the false hope that you can wait until the next morning to change the batteries. Once you are back soundly asleep, they screech again; The Mister then has to drag the tall ladder in from the garage and groggily climb up ten feet to change the battery (assuming we have spares!) or unplug the thing for the night (if we don't). But since we don't really know which one has the dead battery, as they set each other off, The Mister spends the rest of the night in anticipation of another ear-piercing, half asleep and half awake. Does this sound like I have recent experience? Well, if you notice the dark circles under The Mister's eyes today, you might be able to guess why.