New Water Heater

While I was away at training for a month my water heater sprung a leak. That is actually an understatement, the water heater systematically failed. It started leaking from every seam both on the top and bottom. The entire basement had about 1/8” of water in it. – Fun – So for the first week or I ignored like any good home owner what else can you do. That as it turned out was a bad Idea and the water didn’t go away. So the second solution was even more fun. I cut the hot water off to the water heater. This meant anytime I wanted to use hot water I had to go to the basement and turn it back on. I’ll tell you this it was a ton of fun waking up early in the morning, walking into the cold basement, turning the water on, and then turning it off before I left for work. So after these wonderful solutions caused me more hassle then putting a new one in I broke down and bought a new one!

The old water heater lasted about 15 years and the longest warranty I saw at Home Depot or Menard’s was 12 years I guess buying a new one isn’t that big of a deal. Of course now I’ll be short on cash for an extra couple of pay checks but what can you do. Anyway with the exception of Sears there isn’t much of a selection in water heaters at home improvement stores. So I picked one with a nine year warranty that was 25% larger and 25% more powerful than the old one. So hopefully the supply will last a lot longer than the old one. I asked a friend of mine from work to help me out with it and the free labor cost me quite a bit. KW was a heck of a plumber – even if I need to practice sweating pipes – but that man can eat. It cost me 2 brats, 2 big burgers, a half dozen beers, a bag of tortilla chips, and jar of salsa. The grocery bill was pretty close to what a plumber would have cost (I kid, I kid, of course thank KW!)! But now that is finished so hopefully that is the last appliance for a long time.