We’ve been experiencing rampant system failures at our Cameron office these days. Some of them are pretty funny, and some of them we don’t even have to pay for. Still, it’s always something these days!

Action shot of the trench to hold our electricity lines being dug. Ooh.

Electricity Struggles

The Hermits’ Rest Enterprises office in Cameron is in an old house, probably 80-100 years in age. As you can imagine, its infrastructure is also old. The house does have trendy underground power lines, which sounds pretty modern. Unfortunately, after one of our recent rain storms, the power went out in half the house. It turned out not to be something simple like a circuit breaker or a downed line outside. No, something underground had given up. That’s not so easy to fix.

So, for a week or more, the office was running on this handy portable electric thing that looked like a hybrid meter and furniture dolly. Whatever it was, it worked.

Then, on Friday of last week, trucks began to arrive. Many trucks. And the men from the trucks stood around and pondered for a while, then started to dig and dig. They said they’d let us know when the power would need to go off so they could switch to the new lines (thick, shiny, and new ones). I showed them where our water line was, so they could avoid it (and also found out that the workers at the house next door had left the darned thing dripping since they finished the Travis 2 house). And lo and behold, we did get the power back. That is good.

Water Woes

Handy wrench that is preventing a big ole flood.

Of course, things in a small town are weird. There seem to be TWO water lines to the house. The machinery hit the one we didn’t know existed. It was pretty corroded, you know, because it’s old infrastructure in an old town. We now know why the water was all yellow when it first got turned on (and why we still don’t drink it).

The electricity dudes tried to turn the water off at the street. Ha ha! Three men tried and tried, and only managed to damage their tools. That thing was not going to budge. Eventually they managed to cap the water off where they broke it, to where it just dribbles.

So, we have a call in to the City to fix the water meter shut-off. They don’t seem to be in a huge hurry. And we have a call in to a plumber to replace the line to the house. It’s so icky that we’d rather replace it than repair it. Even our plants deserve better water than they are getting! We will know the time frame for the water repairs today. Keep your fingers crossed for us that at least something temporary can happen soon.

And, It’s Hot Up There

Just to add to the fun, there’s something awry with the upstairs climate control. Larry and Valerie Andress are renting out the upstairs for their businesses’ offices. They are getting the place fixed up really cute, but it’s hot as heck, except in the bathroom, where the rusty vent in the bathtub area pumps out like there’s no tomorrow.

It’s nice and cool in here. And look at all that insulation (light is from a window, not a hole in the house).

So, Larry called in an air conditioning technician to see what’s up. The attic and closet were also nice and chilly. Just the actual offices are warm. It turns out that the issue is the ductwork had worn out. There were many options proposed to remedy this, such as an entire new system, one of those snazzy wall systems, or repairing the existing system so that air will actually reach the offices. Guess which options were multiples of thousands and which was less than $200? And guess which one Larry’s going with? That’s right. We’ll limp along with the inexpensive fix until the main system bites the dust in a couple of years, and replace everything then.

Thanks to Trusty Rusty, it’s also nice and pleasant in the upstairs bathroom.

The good news is that the house apparently has a lot of insulation. Thanks, Trubee family (the previous owners)!

Our hope is that this will be the last of the items that make for a workable office to go out on us for a while! We would like our beautiful offices to also feel beautiful, have lights and Internet, and have flushable toilets. It’s the little things that make us happy.

We want the whole place to feel as beautiful as Val’s office is looking!