Basement playroom ceiling, before repair

Hagia Sophia was a church built by William the Conqueror in Constantinople in 537 AD. It is one of the most significant buildings in one of the most significant cities in the world. Danita and I won’t be seeing this building or the city, but we are still going to Greece. We ended up selecting another Road Scholar tour that leaves the same date and covers most of the important archaeological sites. We are arriving 2 days early to pick up a couple of sites north of Athens that the tour misses. But we won’t be going to Constantinople.

Cheap plastic cut-off valve

Wednesday, our contractor came and fixed the damaged ceiling in our basement playroom. It looks fine. You may recall this leak was caused by a cheap plastic cut-off valve. The leak occurred at the red arrow. This cheap valve cost over $1500 in repairs. Fortunately, the insurance company helped with that. Our plumber spent a good part of Wednesday replacing all the cheap cut-off valves with metal ball valves, and also installed super cool “Bat Man” flex lines. I call the Bat Man flex lines because they are wrapped with a steel band that is like the armor that protects the Batmobile.

Metal ball valve with super cool Bat Man flex line

While we’re fixing things up, we’re having the dryer vent cleaned this afternoon. That hasn’t been done since we moved in 6 years ago. We have also been informed that we should have the fire sprinklers inspected annually. That hasn’t been done in 11 years, so getting that done is near the top of the list. That leaves the E-car charger installation to get us all ship-shape. Or it would, except the E-car started displaying a mysterious warning, so the car will be going to the dealer for a look-over soon. It’s a good thing we’re retired. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have time to get all this stuff done.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.