That Old Geyser (No not the Prof!)

At last the geyser story. Remember I told you our geyser burst – and it had a funny story. Well here goes.

The house and general garden needed a lot of work and repair. I began slowly and cautiously. A friend - Handy Heinz, helped with these tasks.


Somewhere along the lines – whilst the Prof still had some goodwill left toward me, he had asked me if he could help me with the geyser. Apparently the pipes looked rusted, and he had bought pipes and valves the previous winter already, to do these repairs, and he was willing to help me.

At this stage I had developed a serious allergy against the Prof and his help. Something inside me just said –NO.

Before it became an issue, the geyser suddenly lost pressure, and heat. I had Heinz over, who found a burst pipe, and needed to repair a whole stack of the old hot water pipes.
While this process was continuing, Heinz told me, I notice that you have a 400KPA geyser. (This is the pressure of the geyser.)
O, I said – knowing diddly squat about this stuff. Not programmer related language this, you understand.

Well, he continued, you have a 100 KPA valve on the geyser, which means that the pressure which comes out is very low.

Ooooh – now he was starting to speak a language I understood. This was starting to make sense. For 14 years the Prof had been trying to sort out the pressure in the shower – with limited success. Could it be that THIS was the reason why?

Well, shall I replace it for you with the correct valve, Heinz asked.

Yes please. The new valve made an amazing difference to the water pressure in the shower. More good stuff coming out of this whole business.

The Prof became aware of the geyser problem via the children and came to talk to me about it. "O", he said, "I hear you have someone helping you?"
Yes.
"Who?"
I shrugged. Not his business, I thought to myself.

"Well", he continued, "shall I give you the stuff I had bought for the geyser anyway, then Mr Campbell can use it."
Mr Campbell was not helping me with the geyser – but I let the Prof assume whatever he pleased.
He walked into my garage and came out with a package containing a box.

To this day I don’t know how I got so lucky. I don’t know anything about valves, pressure etc. But, as I glanced at the package, I realized it was a geyser valve, and happened to catch sight of the 100KPA written on the side.

I felt an awful, mischievous glee bubble up inside me. I did not have to accept the Prof’s charity after all!

Sticking my nose in the air and giving a dramatic sniff I piped up with my new found knowledge:
"O – I see you have a 100 KPA valve. But my geyser is a 400 KPA geyser, so I don’t want your valve , thank you very much. THAT is why I have been battling with the pressure for as long as I have."

A moment of stunned silence, before the Prof grabbed the package in a huff, turned on his heel and left. Good Riddance.

Boy, was that fun.

The link to the present day, is that some 2 and a half years later, this very old geyser of approximately 18 years (we think), burst.
We managed to contain most of the damage because we were home when it happened.

The Prof, of course, had to make some sarcastic comments. He told the children : "well the geyser burst because your mother put a 400KPA valve on it. That’s what happens if you do stuff like that."

When the geyser guys came, they installed another 400 KPA geyser. Werner casually asked them, so what pressure valve do you use for that, 400 KPA?
They looked somewhat surprised – and then answered politely – yes OF COURSE.

Humph, well Prof, wrong again – you are the weakest link, please leave.