…but fate had other plans.
Zoë was helping me take a shelf off the wall next to the water heater to prepare for some wall painting, unscrewing some brackets screwed into the studs.
I don’t know about you, but when I’m unscrewing a shelf, water suddenly gushing out from the wall is not something for which I am typically prepared.
Long story short, when I put that shelf up several months ago, one of the screws went sideways just enough to run into the 1″ pex line that carries hot water to the rest of the house. Apparently the screw made a pretty good seal until it was removed:

Happily, it’s easy to fix (once you have some form of pex connecting tool, which i ended up picking up at home depot). Patching the drywall is going to be more work than giving the pipe.

I’m thinking while I have it open, though, I’m going to tidy up the water heater connections. The plumber did a really sloppy job on them…
.
