hot water anyone?

when we returned home from being away eight days, we discovered something...we had no hot water. ok yes, the water heater was indeed out. oh but wait it gets better. so after boiling a few pots of hot water to give the girls a bath, i heard water sounding like it was coming out of a pipe underneath the tub. we first checked toilets to make sure none of them were running and then we went outside and shut off the main valve. lo and behold as soon as we did that, the sound stopped.

that night we contacted our landlord who was going to have a plumber come out in the morning. for the night, we just kept the water off. this meant keeping the phrase "if its yellow let it mellow" idea. i do have to tell you it is funny how automatic things are like after going to the bathroom, putting liquid soap on your hands to wash them. finally, we just filled up a bunch of pots with water really quickly and then shut the water off again just for these sorts of hand washing occasions.

the next day the plumber came out (not until around noon), but we did have good news and bad news. the good news was it was only the hot water line which meant we could have cold water and flushing toilets. the bad news was that there wouldn't be any hot water unless absolutely necessary. the plumber showed us how to turn the water heater just to pilot and turn the hot water supply off. side note: we had to turn 'off' the water heater so it didn't continue to make hot water with no where for it to go. so alas, we have cold water, a broken hot water pipe, and in a few days two torn up bathrooms.

the bathrooms share a wall so the thought is to put a new hot water pipe through the attic and down the wall that they share. our bathroom toilet shares the wall with the girls' bathtub so it will be much easier to move the toilet and tear up that wall. i have no idea how they will put a new line into the kitchen. i guess i will find out later this week! my only concern now is getting my water bill....it should be interesting since we don't know how long it was really "gushing" for while we were in Idaho.