Tradesman, or as in our case, no tradesman

Yesterday at 3am, hubby got up to go to the loo, and put the passage light on and woke me. I asked him why, and he said the hot water service was leaking. I got up and discovered there was indeed a large pool of water on the floor. He turned the valve off, and I put news paper on the pool to soak it up, meaning to see to it later. When we arose later in the AM, it was still leaking. This is on top of the pressure pump breaking down because ants had eaten out part of the mechanism, looking for water. They have caused it to not function many times, but this time they really mucked it up. Neville eventually fixed the pump. It would pump but not switch off when the tap was turned off. Today, he wants to go to a nearby farm and continue splitting firewood, so he can load it on a semi, so we can sell it soon. He had hoped to be gone by 8 o'clock, but has made two trips to try to buy parts to fix the hot water srevice. He said he might have to empty the tank to be able to fix it. Thankfully , that has not been necessary, as it would have meant the loss of sixty gallons of rain water. He was able to buy a sealed gate valve from Faull's( plumber/tankmaker) for $5.50. Bargain! He has just done his usual joke routine, and said, 'What a bugger!' I had to ask. "What's the matter?" He said, "Bloody thing won't leak." I wish I could read his mind sometimes, then I would not get 'caught'