Most of you know that we made a commitment on my home’s 100th birthday to the next yet-to-be-determined steward of The Surgeon’s House of keeping a monthly diary of the happenings here. Even to my somewhat surprise, we have been faithful to that commitment to afford the next guy a bit more of a factual foundation for maintenance.
One can hardly imagine the numbers of electricians and plumbers who have added to the patchwork of the home and grounds as they now exist, and it is absolutely fruitless to attempt to guess the ‘whys’ of what we find in her underpinnings. Recently, we were awakened to water dripping in my office/apartment area over a dresser near the hot water heater – never a good sign.
A quick treasure hunt in the crawlspace – what a treat – revealed a corroded and leaking pressure regulator valve.
Upon closer examination, we entangled not one but TWO pressure regulator valves, one appearing to be original and the other a later, inscrutable addition. Trying to follow the crumbs in tracing all lines is always tricky but necessary as we don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot in disabling something that is truly needed.
With careful planning and projection of what all might go wrong and might be needed, we crossed our fingers and jumped in. At the end of the day, our angels were smiling on us with no red herrings or emergencies, streamlined construction, and a side order of unexpected beautifully increased water pressure throughout the house. Take a look at all the stuff we got rid of . . .
