Raining in My Kitchen

It was monsoon season in my kitchen last night.  I came home yesterday evening to find that the supposed 'fix' to my leaking hot water cylinder had failed spectacularly and it was now raining warm water from the kitchen ceiling.  When I say 'rain', I mean 'torrential rain'.  I quickly ran out of buckets and towels with which to contain the mess. The plumber who had 'fixed' the cylinder wasn't answering his phone, so I was forced to call another plumber. luckily he was prepared to come out on a Sunday evening and safely drain the cylinder for me.  He also came back to me this morning with a quote for replacing the cylinder - it was actually very reasonable and he's coming back on Wednesday morning to carry out the work. Meanwhile, I'm without hot water again.  On a more positive note, in the cold light of day the kitchen didn't look anywhere near as bad as I feared it would.  It will still require a massive clean up and, when it has dried out, a complete redecoration (which I was planning on doing anyway, but now it will have to be sooner rather than later).

To be fair, I don't blame the original plumber for last night's disaster.  I was the one who authorised the work, although I should have known better.  I should just have told him to replace the cylinder from the outset instead of letting him try to patch it with sealant.  The fact is that you simply can't repair hot water cylinders once they've started leaking - there is no sealant which withstand the pressure which builds up once hot water is pumped into them.  So there's a lesson for you - if your hot water cylinder springs a leak, swallow the cost and replace it immediately if you want to avoid having water running down your walls.  As you might have guessed by now, I'm growing weary with the constant domestic disasters which seem to have been engulfing my life for the past few months.  Hopefully, if I can just get this one sorted out, then I can get back to clearing up the messes caused by them all - and then I can get back on with my life, I have all manner of plans which have had to be put on hold while I try to deal with these crises.  Anyway, I'm well aware that this blog is in danger of turning into a chronicle of my domestic sagas, so I'm going to try to get things back on track here as well - I have numerous planned posts postponed because of my domestic dramas.  I'm also thinking of trying podcasting again.  Not 'The Sleazecast', but a new title and format, probably based around posts made here, which should be less time consuming to produce than 'The Sleazecast'.  Well, that's the plan, anyway.