You may recall that we ran out of fuel oil last Sunday. We got more fuel delivered early Wednesday morning. Um, now what? Do we just turn the furnace back on? Is there a pilot light? rfunk read something online saying that if the tank has run dry, the new oil will stir up sediment on the bottom of the tank, and you should wait 24 hours before restarting ( Read more... )

My neighbor lent me his aluminum extension ladder this weekend so and I could clean out the gutters and repair a downspout that had been pulled away from the siding by ivy that had been growing there. I think we might have been able to handle the job if it was a one-story house, but a two-story house made for a commedy of errors. For one thing, the ( Read more... )

The last time I posted about our continuing water problems at the farmhouse, I noted that while we finally had consistent water pressure inside the house, the outside hydrant no longer had any water pressure. Great. The hydrant is the only outside water spigot, and I need to be able to provide water for my tenant farmers, let alone watering my own ( Read more... )

Water pressure update: the pressure seems fine inside, but the hydrant outside was without water pressure this afternoon. Water goes to the hydrant before getting pressurized at the tank. So maybe there is a problem with the well pump as well. Great. I’ll have to call the driller out to give it a second look.

In other news, dinner consisted of ( Read more... )

The problems we've had with our water system ever since the huge elecitrical storm in late June, are now, I believe, completely fixed. The water heater was fixed two weeks ago, but even after that we’ve had intermittant problems with the water pressure dropping down to nothing for a few minutes (or more), and then coming back to full pressure. It ( Read more... )

Whining ( Read more... )

Oh, yeah, I forgot to update on the water heater situation. It gave us a day of tripping the breaker every time we drew hot water, but since then we haven't had any more trouble with it. I still think I should call for a service technician at some point, since the owners manual says it should be serviced annually, which hasn't been done in the ( Read more... )

The rest of my weekend was fun, too. Highlights include ( Read more... )

A friend of mine at work is remodeling his kitchen and sold all of his old appliances for very cheap. Since the dishwasher at the farmhouse is old and desperately needs replacing, I bought my friend's used one. We picked it up Saturday and yesterday we attempted to remove the old dishwasher. You can read rfunk's account for the details ( Read more... )

Monday evening when I came downstairs after my shower I discovered that it had been raining from the ceiling. A little investigation determined that there is a tiny hole in the bottom of my bathtub. The tub is one of the old kinds with enamel over metal. The enamel has worn off in places and the metal is rusting. In one spot it has rusted clean ( Read more... )