When Things Break – Covid Edition

In a moment of absolutely perfect timing, the hot water heater decided to stop functioning on Friday night during our first week of isolation. It may have quit before then but I only noticed it when trying to take a shower. I kept waiting for the hot water which never came. Probably ended up taking one of the quickest showers ever.

We live in an area with very hard water that tends to eat up hot water heaters. And when they go, there isn’t really anything that can be done except replace them. Now, of course, we weren’t about to get a water heater replaced on a Friday night but we called for a plumber to come out on Saturday.

Which presented some challenges. In talking with the dispatcher, we got to what are the new routine questions – “anyone in you house test positive for COVID?” and a few others like that. I think they just expect everyone to give the all clear so there was a slight pause when I had to admit that, indeed, someone had tested positive.

And I would have totally understood if they told me that nobody could come out. But the plumber who came out originally called and said he had no issues since he’d been doing house visits since the start of this whole thing. Kind of wanted to tell him not to get too overconfident since I assumed I was at low risk of actually being exposed.

Anyway, we kept distance between us and I wore my mask. As expected, we needed a new one which he priced out and scheduled the replacement for Monday. The good news is that he was able to do a temporary fix so we actually had hot water.

Same process on Monday – just opened the door and walked away and stayed more than six feet away from the guys at all times. They did have to pass over a tablet for a signature and there was the exchange of the card to pay for the whole thing but we tried to do it as safely as possible. I don’t actually know if the two guys who installed the thing were vaxed or not – decided it wasn’t my place to ask. Guess they seemed OK with being there though.

Now we are done with isolation so if anymore stuff decides to break, it will be less of an issue.