Monday, May 12, 2008
IN HOT WATER
It is getting to be that time of year.
The tap water is beginning to be hot no matter what tap you tap or when you tap it.
Desert living has a few downsides. One is that, in summer, cool water isn't all that cool and, if your pipes run across the roof as ours do, you get hot and hot and more hot until, eventually, you get tepid.
The pipes run across the roof because the ones that were installed in the slab corroded long ago. The water is very calcified and will corrode and clog up any pipes in less time than in other locales. The heat doesn't help things. Well, it helps the calcification.
So, any house older than 20 years or so, will begin to have water leakage problems in the slab.
You can dig up the slab and fix the leak but there will be more leaks down the road. Most people opt to take the pipes to the roof and down into the house.
Our house is over 50 years old. The slab pipes got fucked up long ago.
So, in the summer we get hot water when we don't want it. But with a little planning, you can minimize the problem.
The first ten feet or so of water is as cool as the inside of the house so, for example, when I fill Franklin's water bowl, I time it so there will be a cool column of water.
If the kitchen isn't cooled down, I go to the guest bath.
Actually, it is an easy thing to get around.
What is really bad about pipes on the roof is that in winter, when and if the night temps get into the thirties, we will have frozen pipes! It has happened twice so far.
