Our old water heater is failing in a number of ways, corrosion, fan failing, etc.. It currently consumes an entire room in the basement. Behind the water heater is a Winchester Mystery House staircase which is a remnant of the previous house built on the property.

We researched and immediately learned about tankless or “inline” water heaters. These are common place in other parts of the world, but here in the US we are used to the 70 gallon reserve tank heaters.

Our concerns about the inline heaters were first hand comments about the amount of time it takes for hot water to arrive at the faucet. Finally after some additional research we learned about “hybrid” water heaters and settled on such a device for our house. The pictures below show its size relative to the previous 70 gallon water heater tank.

It has an internal 2 gallon tank that maintains hot water for immediate demand. Beyond the immediate demand, all remaining hot water is delivered by an on-demand mechanism. There were several advantages to this over a pure tankless water heater. 1) We get hot water faster, thanks to the 2 gallon tank. 2) Because the unit isn’t required to heat water so fast, it doesn’t require a bigger natural gas line like many standard tankless units.

The final benefit, is that the platform previously used to host our 70 gallon water heater now is gone and provides an additional storage space!

So to tie this back to the title of the story; the morning that the plumbers arrived, Kevin had a suggestion to the plumbers.  He told them “if you tape wheels to the bottom and a handle to the side of the tank, you can drag it up the stairs from the basement".  We were impressed and think he may have a future in engineering

Ryan loves to pull him self up to a standing position anywhere he can.  Then he likes to test his balance and gives us a big smile saying “see…I can stand!!”   Watch the little man in action below

The Clunker

The new car!

After months of talking about buying a new car to replace my old Nissan Pathfinder, I finally got my act together with a lot of low key nudging from Heather.  I wanted something sporty and 4 doors seemed like a requirement to avoid breaking my back trying to put kids in the back seat.  Fitting into the garage with Heather’s monster car was also a challenge.

After dealing with a number of really low life car salesman we finally found 1 remaining 2009 VW GTI in the Bay Area. I made 3 trips to the DMV getting all the paper work necessary for the cash for clunkers deal.  After it was all said and done, I closed the cash for clunkers deal 1 day before the dealership stopped processing any new deals and 3 days before the program ended.  Best of all, I got MY $4500 tax dollars (which I would have never authorized for a cash for clunkers program) back in the form of a new car.

In the photo above, Kevin is about to take it for a test drive!!

At the Campbell Farmer’s Market this morning, I bought a few herbs to plant in pots. It is annoying to buy a bunch of basil, rosemary, and parsley at the grocery store, only to use a couple tablespoons in a recipe. The rest of the bunch goes bad and ends up moldy in the fridge. So I decided to grow my own.

Dave promised to get a drip system to my new herb garden on the patio. While he played Mr. Landscaper, I headed to Summerwinds to buy planting mix and a rectangular pot. I came home looking like I’d robbed the rose parade.

I bought more herbs (the rectangular pot I chose was so big that I needed more to fill it out): rosemary, chives, oregano, basil, and parsley. Then I got sucked into row after row of beautiful annuals: Cosmos, Fuchsias, White and Blue Angelface, New Guinea Impatients, and Coleus. Dave was wide-eyed when I brought it all home, but not a bit surprised..

The herb planting process was interesting. I bought a “starter kit,” which included a rectangular box with an elevated platform above a water reservoir. It also included vegetable fertilizer (organic, of course) and a black plastic cover. I cut 11 holes in the black plastic cover and stuck my new plants through those. I filled up the water reservoir via the tall black tube. There is an overflow drain, so there is no chance of over-watering. Pretty tricky, I’d say.

Since I have done this many times before, I had plenty of pots collecting spiders and other gunk on the side of our house. A few hours later, all my new annuals found homes in a variety of pots. Dave set up a complicated network of drip lines with plenty of T-valves to a set of shelves on our patio. He was quite proud that everything worked the first time and you can barely spot the drip lines!

Now I’m off to look for recipes that use my new herbs!