Calling the Fire Department

We had an adventure during the week Jared had off for Christmas! Jared called up to me from the downstairs asking me to come down and smell if the 'burning smell' that he was smelling was normal or not. Not thinking it was anything serious and being busy in the kitchen, I told him that I didn't want to come down. Within probably less than a minute, Jared called up again requesting that I come down right then, since the smell had infiltrated the whole downstairs. I hurried down that time, sensing the more serious tone in his voice. I sniffed and what I smelled was not 'normal.' It was not super, super strong, but more than either of us felt comfortable with blowing off. So, Jared looked online, and found that it advised you to call 911 if you thought there might be a fire, even if there were no visible signs. We felt silly calling 911, so instead he called the fire department. They dispatched the unit, below, just to be safe.

Once they had gotten to our house, the smell had dissipated by a bit and we felt kind of foolish for calling, but we still knew we had to err on the side of caution, with having two little ones and having me being pregnant!

The fire men did not find a fire,...

but they did find that our water heater had blown out! That is where the smell had originated from. And if we had not caught it right then, they told us our whole basement could have flooded!!! They turned off our hot water and the gas on the water heater for us. We are really grateful that they found the problem, and were so nice about it.

We called our landlord, who responded swiftly and also so nicely! By that night, a new hot water heater had been installed and the blown one had been taken out!

The timing of Jared being home, noticing it, and acting on getting it checked out was a huge blessing from on high!!! We feel very grateful that things worked out so smoothly, and that we were spared a flood, which could have literally and figuratively dampened our holiday cheer!