Maintenance...

The need for maintenance never sleeps. Over the past couple days, Wild Blue's house batteries have nose dived - not holding a charge. Load tested, it showed they were both beyond saving. This set lasted less than 18 months (2 grp 27 deep cycle). Our neighbor, who owns the boat building shop where we bought the batteries, again recommended going with starting batteries instead of deep cycle... he and I have had this discussion 3 times now. I have taken his advice and put in two marine starting batteries. We'll see how these new ones last. I have the feeling this last cold spell did them in. They were showing good charge and water was right up where it's supposed to be.

The tankless water heater in the house took a dump. I called the manufacturer, we diagnosed (hopefully) the problem and had parts overnighted. Yeah, that didn't come off like planned. Joan and I took turns staying home yesterday (I got some boat time in, she didn't; she shopped, I didn't; I think I won that deal) to wait for the delivery. New day today, another call into the manufacturer (really, we'll call you back this time). Fortunately, we have shower facilities at our pool and exercise room here, but that doesn't help with the dishes. We are "camping out" at the house, heating water on the stove. No big deal; we'd just like to get it fixed and get on with things.

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On edit: the parts for the water heater came in. It took about an hour and a half to do the recommended parts changing, all while crammed into a cabinet... and SO worth it. No leaks, the electronic stuff is now doing what it's supposed to, and we have hot water again. After the appropriate "leak watch" (also as recommended), I got in a long, luxurious soak in the jacuzzi tub. I feel like a new man... it almost eliminated the aches and pains I got from being a contortionist during the repair.

Now, we are focused on eliminating some of our "treasures" this weekend in a village-wide "Trash to Treasures" garage sale.