We are the Johnson parents and we are handy!! (Part 2: Wes the plumber)

Saturday night March 14, Wes and I hear a funny noise in our house. We think it is weird, but it only happens once, so we don't think much of it. Fast forward to Sunday March 15th, in the early evening, after church. Wes goes outside in the backyard to play with the kids. There is water leaking all along back of the house, between the siding and the house. Wes thinks, "Hmmm, this looks like a burst pipe, or maybe it is run-off from the warming we had that day." So, to test his theories, he turns off the water in the house to see if the leaking stops. It does. Darn, it must be a burst pipe-Wes is sure of it now, and it explains the strange noise as well. Double Dang-that sounds like a very expensive repair for us, and remember it is a Sunday night at that point.

Being the responsible adults that we are, we decide to look up our insurance to see if this is covered, and to see what our deductible is. This is the first time we have needed our homeowners insurance. The weekend lady tells us that she isn't sure and the week day lady will have to let us know later in the week. So for now we just need to get it repaired. Oh as a side note, we have no way to just shut off water to that faucet/pipe, so until it is repaired, we are stuck with no water on in the house at all.

We do not know who to call or who we can trust to be our new plumber. So we start calling people in the ward to get recommendations. One guy in the ward does that stuff, and could help but not for a week, so he recommends calling someone that is non-union. People we talk to do not give us specific recommendations, but we do get some DO NOT CALLs... So, we keep looking and start calling plumbers listed in the phone book. I am starting to think this will be VERY expensive and I am getting more frustrated. I am also learning how much I love and rely on my running water. I cannot get anything done that was on my list-no laundry, no dishes, not relaxing bath at the end of a horrible 3 hours of fighting kids at church...we cannot even flush the toilet (ew). It sucks.

Regardless of the horror of the situation, we are able to determine that we will save SIGNIFICANT amounts of money if we wait until Monday (the next morning) to have a plumber come out, and we determined one that our real estate agent recommended (he has the greatest connections ever, and is like the most helpful guy to know in Omaha). So we have to live through at least one day with no water. OK

After all that, we get a call from our bishop who we had not gotten a hold of, but had left a message asking if he knew a good, reliable, reasonably-priced plumber. He calls back to say that, no he knows none. In fact he was so frustrated by plumbing bills and problems, that he watched the plumber at his house a couple times doing stuff, figured out how to do it himself, and bought the necessary tools. Since then, he has been doing his own plumbing, oh and hey he offers to bring over his tools and help Wes fix it late Monday night (after family night and his kids are in bed). We gratefully accept his offer.

Monday I needed to get the house, mainly the laundry room as it is the interior access point to the pipe, clean so the bishop can come and do this. I also need to go get the supplies. Wes said he would get them on the way home from work, but it seemed stupid to have him do that when I was going to be home all day. I was freaking out about everything as Wes went to work (just in my head-not aloud for Wes to hear). However, my husband is acutely aware of the things that totally throw me off, so he goes to work, and as soon as he gets there decides he cannot leave me with all the kids (all because Solace had no school that day) trying to get everything ready. So, he walked in to work, explained the situation and said he needed to take a vacation day.

We worked together and got all the supplies, cleaned the house, and when the bishop came, he and Wes worked and got the pipe fixed by about midnight. It was amazing! And guess what-it worked (still works). They even added an off switch so if this happens again, we can just shut off the water to that faucet, and not the whole house! YEAH!!! AND-now Wes knows how to fix it next time on his own!!

Thanks Bishop!

Thanks Wes!!!

Ever Wonder what a burst pipe looks like? Here's Ender modeling it:

New and improved: