A little more to the story...

The way I remember the free hot water story:

 

We moved into a place with a beautiful atrium, an elevator, and a spiral staircase, knowing it would be a boon to our social lives. It also had a gubmint subsidy because they used passive solar to preheat water that went into a giant boiler under the building where the water to refill your hot water heater came from, so as to make the tenant's hot water heating bill low.

 

That summer, Eric worked nights at (my) Waffle House and I worked all the other hours, so pretty much no one was home AND awake at night. It was a west-facing place with a gas stove, and so the rare evening one or both of us were home, we could cook and dine by sun light. Somehow or other we decided to turn off the electricity (to stick it to the man) to save money.

 

One morning, while getting ready to take a cold shower, I had the sink running for some unknown reason, and the water started to warm up. We both immediately realized that our room-temperature water was draining out of our water heater and was being replaced with hot water.

 

From then on, we would get up a few minutes early, turn on the hot water in the sink, and go back to bed for a few minutes. Viola! Hot showers.

 

Eventually PNM got a nasty letter from the Rio Grande Conservancy District telling them to turn our power back on before we depleted the aquifer. Heh.

 

Alex