what the *&(#*$^&^%@#&*!@O#!?

So we got home late last night from being away for three days this past weekend. I went to check the water for the chickens, grabbed the waterer, and headed for the hose in the back corner of the house. What is that sound? I thought. It was coming from under the house, in the crawl space beneath the guest bath. Uhh, that's not good. I peeled open the covering to the entryway to find scalding hot water spewing out of the hot water supply for the shower. Racing around in the dark like mad, K brought a flashlight and I grabbed for the shutoff valve that I (now thankfully) had the foresight to install when I redid all the plumbing for that bathroom (I remembered reading how - since the shower faucet is essentially a shut-off valve in-and-of-itself - an extra shutoff wasn't really necessary, and indeed - the plumber who had done the install of the shower hadn't bothered to install them).

Phwew. At least hot water was no longer spraying all over the cramped little crawl space. But WTF!?

So this morning I went under there to inspect. Turns out - it was the bloody valve itself that had failed -

So off to Mclendon's I went to buy a new valve. The thing I noticed however, was that the new valve didn't look the same... In fact, it was missing the joints on either end (and the joint that - for seemingly no reason whatsoever other than the fact it was installed six years ago - had failed). My suspicion goes something like this: Sharkbite realized that the design was prone to malfunction, and so - sometime between then and now - updated it. Probably a good thing.

Regardless - the crawl space is soaked and I have a fan blowing through it now. May have to deal with some mold, but it's better than had it been the main bath that is over the basement - had that failed, half of the basement right now would be completely soaked (including my homebuilt gear shelf)...

So I'm counting my blessings...