Not the usual start to the day today..

First, one of the kids woke up at 1.30 am complaining that they couldn't sleep (they had actually been asleep, but logical arguments don't seem very successful at that hour of the morning!).

Then, later on, around 5 am I think, another child woke up complaining it was too dark. I turned on a bedside light, and they seemed happy enough with that to be able to go back to sleep again.

Not so much for me.. I tossed and turned for a while, then decided to get up myself. After breakfast I went to have a shower, only to discover that the hot water wasn't. My initial theory was that the batteries had gone flat in the instantaneous gas hot water heater, but we didn't have any spare 'D' cells to replace them. I rushed down to the shops just in time for opening (7 am), bought some batteries. Back home, new batteries in, but no joy.

Next step, ring some plumbers. Got on to one, who suggested isolating the heater to double-check whether it was actually trying to start or not. I checked that, and it wasn't, so the batteries were probably not to blame. He then said I was best off ringing Bosch to arrange a service call.

Bosch water heaters are serviced in Adelaide by SA Hot Water, but they don't open until 8.30 am, so while I waited I proceeded to boil the kettle multiple times so that I could have a bath in reasonably warm water. This reminded me that I am relatively tall, and our bath is relatively short. I won't provide any pictures (you can breathe a sigh of relief!), but basically with a bit of wriggling about I can either get my legs wet, or my top half, but not both at the same time.

I rang back SA Hot Water at 8.30 am, got through to their service people and it turns out they've got a guy in the area who could come over right away – hooray!

He arrived not long after, and after giving some advice along the lines that our heater is probably on the way out (just over 8 years old) and is also a bit undersized for our house, managed to fix the problem.

So now my wallet is a bit lighter, but I'm also thinking that we should start investigating a replacement unit, with the idea that it would be compatible with a solar hot water system (something the current unit wasn't).