Day: January 27, 2021💾

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The water heater (again!)

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The water heater (again!) …

While I am quite happy that the landlord got it fixed the same day I called in the issue — replacing the leaking water heater, you got to wonder about the quality of the set up that it’s been the third one he’s replaced since I’ve moved here. I don’t even use that much hot water, much of the summer it is off or barely running.

I’ve always thought tanked water-heaters are pretty wasteful, despite their improving insulation — the landlord finally bought a better quality model and energy standards have improved efficiency. But I don’t know when I own my own land if I would want one. Not only do they take up a lot of space and waste energy, propane-instant on, tankless heaters are cheaper and easier to use off-grid. Or maybe that’s even over-technologically doing things — a lot of tankless heaters don’t last forever and they do burn a lot of propane.

Possibly the best and certainly reliable system for heating water is the most old fashioned. On the stove. That’s how I planned to do it if the landlord wasn’t going to be able to get the water ready for a few days. Heat water on the stove, and then dump it into a gravity-fed pipe for washing dishing or taking a shower. Yes, it’s work, but it’s reliable and inexpensive. It forces you to be conservation minded with water, and if you heat it on the woodstove that is heating the building, it doesn’t use any extra energy.

I get modernity and being lazy. Water is heavy to haul, especially if you have to take it upstairs to the loft, in a hot, sloshing bucket. Modernity would like to burn a lot of fossil fuels and be lazy, even if you could get just as good of a shower with a gravity fed-bucket above a shower, and use much less energy and water to still take a quality shower.

But alas, for now I still live in suburbs and work my good-paying job which I can take a bus to everyday, at least once the pandemic is over. The water heater is the landlord’s problem, and if he doesn’t want to pay for quality, it’s not my problem, but it seems silly that he’s replacing these water heaters all of the time. And annoying to me, when I have clean up the floods, and get things ready for the plumber to come on over.

Arkport Historical Society – Village of Arkport

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Arkport Historical Society – Village of Arkport

Founded in 1797 by Christopher Hurlbut, Arkport began as a thriving agricultural center. Each spring when the waters were high, area farmers shipped crops, livestock, potash, timber and other items down the Canisteo River to Baltimore on “arks” built of local tall pine trees and other lumber. At the time the Canisteo River flowed from the hills of Bishopville down to the valley just north of Arkport and through the village where the current Marsh Ditch now flows. The arks were loaded behind the current houses on State Route 36 in fields called the ark yards. This practice continued for several years until the time (around 1825) the Erie Canal was built and it became more cost effective to ship goods via the canal. Hence the name Christopher Hurlbut gave his little town: “Ark-Port”!

Soon after, the railroad was built and began service around 1851. The river bed of the Canisteo River was moved to its present site along the western hill. The first railroads were independent companies; The Attica & Hornellsville followed by the Buffalo & Corning which later became a part of the great “Erie”, a name synonymous with railroaders for the next century.

In the later half of the 19th Century, farmers began draining the swampy marsh just north of the village and converted it to extremely fertile muck land. These several hundred acres of rich farm land brought many many families to the area of who’s decedents still call Arkport home.