Yay home ownership!

This week has been busy.  After about three loads of laundry and another of dishes on monday, we found out tuesday morning that the heating element in the water heater had died.  Dave said he would fix it after work, and he tried. And then the heater didn't want to drain over night.

So I spent a couple of hours draining 18 gallons of water into my calphalon pan and dumping it down the toilet.  And then I tried to pull the elements out.

The top one was perfectly ok.  The bottom one, not so much.

 It was all bent out of shape and totally encrusted, so I had to saw a piece off and manhandle it out.

But wait, there's more!  Lime sediment all the way up to the opening for the element.

I tried some vinegar to break it up, but I would have needed soooo much more than just a gallon of cleaning vinegar.

So I went to True Value to pick up something stronger, and they told me this needed to be sucked up.  So I picked up a third shop vac instead.

Fourteen hours of hell and three gallons of lime sediment sucked out later and I finally have a working water heater again, with two new elements and a new thermostat.

This Is The House That Suck Built

I have this thing about vacuum cleaners.  Specifically shop vacs.  They are so useful!  So when the water heater elements ate shit, I panicked that I couldn't find my one gallon shop vac (my first!) that I only use for wet pickup.  Enter Number Three, my new 2.5 gallon wet shop vac.  I gave it a good shower after the hell that I put it through on wednesday.

This is Number Two.  16 gallons, used for dry pick up, and I've put it through so much hell over the last many years.  Especially with the room demo.

And then I find this whiny little bitch hiding in a cabinet in the laundry room >:[

And because I need something that isn't industrial powered, I found this little beauty at Good Will for $5.

Yep, vacuum cleansers.  Second only to sewing machines >.>