So after the our handyman-neighbor-dude repairman left, we thought: “OK, we will just have to learn how to take shorter showers.” He also gave us advice on getting a new hand-held thingie that would give better water pressure while using less water, resulting in a more enjoyable shower experience. All was not lost.

I was planning on going to a 7:30 shiur at the Israel Center last night. Two minutes before my would-be exit, my wife turned on (or as they say here, opened) the water faucet in the kitchen to wash some dishes.The dude had been on for over an hour at this point, so hot water (at least enough to wash the dishes) was expected. After a few seconds though, the sink made a really loud hissing noise and started spewing scalding hot water and steam. My wife was able to get away with out being burnt, though it was a bit scary. I left my office to see what happened.

And that is when the real fireworks started…

Boiling water and steam started coming down from the ceiling. My wife and I froze and first, only to snap out of it a second later. I grabbed Moshe (who had been sitting a few feet away from the water in his high chair and was now screaming. Don’t worry – he was just upset at the loud noise and was not hurt at all, thank God!). Well, actually, I grabbed Moshe’s high chair and ran out the door with him, after my wife (I first brought him to the far corner of the room, but my wife then yelled for me to leave – we didn’t really know what was going on – for all we knew the roof was about to cave in).

My wife and Moshe went to our downstair neighbor/landlord. I ran across the street to our neighbor/handyman/dude-installer. After knocking on his door, I said (out of breath) to his children: Abba…Abba…is your Abba (father) there? They went of to get him: “Abba, Abba, there is someone at the door”. When he came down the stairs, I said (still out of breath) “emergency…important…smoke…urgent”. It was hard for me to get the right Hebrew words out of my mouth at a time like this. So I ran back across the street with him (I could hear the steam hissing out of out dude all the way from across the street). We got back upstairs to find the last little bit if 40 liters of water dripping down from the roof.

Long story short: when we had gone complaining to him earlier that we couldn’t take long enough showers, he had set the temperature in the dude to 70 degrees (Celcius), or maybe higher. This apparently (as I can very well attest to) is higher than this type of dude should ever go. As a result of lots of water getting very very hot in a contained place, lots of pressure built up. When my wife turned on the faucet, it released all of the pressure at once. The hose connected to the side of the dude (that is suppossed to bring out the hot water) blew away from the pressure, and all of the water (and lots of steam) came pouring down.

Thank God:

• No one was hurt, or burnt
• None of our sefarim or other posessions were ruined
• We still have hot water (at least 4 minutes of shower-time)