Coming Home 3

In earlier posts (Coming Home Parts One and Two), I told about coming home after wintering in Palm Springs to lots of little and large repair projects, including a leaky hot water tank, in-floor water heating that didn’t work, a heat pump that wouldn’t shut off, a damaged boat-lift cover, a sunken water trampoline and a myriad of smaller issues.  In time, I addressed or repaired these, and was feeling good that the worst was behind me.

Then one night, I awoke about 3:00 in the morning and heard a tap-tap-tap, pause, tap-tap-tap, pause.  This went on for about twenty minutes.  A bird?  A workman?  Walking around the house and listening for the source of the hammering, I could see that it came from the plumbing of the in-floor water heating system.  This time I knew that I needed to approach the Lord in humility for help and ask others.   (Eccl. 4:10)  I ran it past our Men’s Bible Study group.  I Googled.  I even approached the ultimate expert on mechanical things: Craig Peterson.

So, what was causing it?  Air in the system?  I bled the air.  Thermal expansion?  I replaced the expansion tank.  I ran the system.  No hammering.  Great.  That must have been the problem.

At 3:30 the next morning, I again heard tap-tap-tap, pause, tap-tap-tap, pause.  What???

I tried bleeding more air from the system.  I checked the fittings, looked at the check valve, and checked the expansion tank again.  I ran the system again.  No hammering.  Hmm.  I didn’t think I did anything different enough to fix the problem.

Sure enough.  About 3:45 the next morning I heard tap-tap-tap again.  Now I’m really stumped and anxious.  I can’t leave it the way it is.  It's too noisy to ignore but I don’t know where to turn.  Later that morning, I ran the system again.  No hammering.  I don’t understand!

The following morning, like clockwork, around 3:30, it started tapping again.  I listened and it stopped after about twenty minutes.  Half an hour later, it started tapping again.  I listened until it stopped.  About twenty minutes later, it started again.

At that point, I could feel this voice inside me, “Bob, are you just going to lie here, or go downstairs and check it out?”  I answered, “I’ve already done that.  I’m not going to find anything new.”  But the voice persisted, so reluctantly I went to the garage to check it out.

I’m so glad I did.  And I believe it was the Lord that allowed me to catch what I had missed earlier.

Our plumbing has a hot water circulation pump that circulates hot water to all the sinks and showers in the house.  The tapping was coming from this pump, not from the in-floor heating system.  And the pump wasn’t running!  That’s odd.  Why not?

Oh, yes.  I put a timer on this pump so it wouldn’t run at night when we didn’t need it (between 11:00 and 5:00 AM).  I turned on the pump and the tapping stopped!  That is why it would tap during the early morning hours, but during the day it wouldn’t.

I cannot take credit for finding the cause of the tapping.  I fought the nudging to go look again.  Even with that, I went with a prejudice about where the noise was coming from.  I had forgotten about the timer.  What prompted me to check it and notice the pump was off?  What prompted me to turn it on at the same time as the in-floor system?

“I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”  (Isaiah 41:10)

I am so grateful for finding the problem and learning how to fix it. I wish I could say that the drama and repairs in my life are over.  But, where would be the fun in that?

Today, as I look out the window, I see another broken post on our boat lift cover.  This one is hard to get to and I haven’t really figured out a good way to access it.  I guess there will be a Part 4 of “Coming Home.”  Will I ever arrive??