Below Zero

Well, I was so looking forward to a shower today, right up till I turned on the water to find NO water. I promptly yelp in panic and ran around opening all the faucets, to find no water in any of the taps. That warranted a colorful word or two, and then felt the tears start.

How was I going to pay to thaw the pipes and repair them ? Who could I call, I'm a single mom with little practical repair skills. As I've found in the past, a deep breath and a considered thought tend to be helpful. Since this is not my first winter, I grew up in VT and I've lived in NH for the past 20 or so years, I'm well aware of the necessity of heat tape on water pipes.

I dressed warmly and headed out to the back of my home to find the water pipes and survey the damage. I live in a relatively new double wide mobile home and the pipes are in the crawl space under the home. Luckily I know where the water enters the home and was able to find it quickly enough.

I had to take apart some of my skirting and then to my shock and discust I found that the heat tape was NOT even plugged in !! I was so angery with myself, I must of unplugged it to save a few bucks on the electricity and never made a note to double check it in the fall. So I plugged it back in and said a prayer that it'd be enough to get the water back on.

Coming back into the house, I warned my kids that we had no water so go easy on the flushes and no showers for the time being. To late of course as they'd gotten up while I was out fighting off the snow drifts to find the water access. Oh well, grin and bare it is the best you can do.

So I sat down at my laptop, thinking about plan B if the water didn't miraculous start to flow. There has never been a sweeter sound than that of flowing water in the kitchen ! I guess I was incredibly lucky that the freeze must of been slight and the heat tape was able to thaw it on its own.

So yet another disaster averted.

Bonnie