Hot Water

Last Monday morning, March 20th, I woke up to a high pitched noise that I instantly knew was a water detector.  I picked up some inexpensive water detectors on Amazon some time ago.  I put one by the water heater and the other ones under the sinks.  Always good to know when water is where it should not be.

So, I was expecting bad news as I hopped out of bed and I was not disappointed.

Water was headed down the hallway towards the kitchen, has seeped into the guest bathroom and the laundry room was flooded.  I quickly turned off the well pump and started grabbing towels to sop up the mess.

Every towel in the house was used to soak up the water.  I'm lucky that the alarm woke me up, it could have been much worse.  But trust me, it was bad.

Right away I sent a text to my plumber and he said that someone would stop by today.

I continued to clean up and fret.

The water heater that was leaking had been installed just 6 years ago.  It was special order via Menards because Wick Manufactured Homes uses a mobile home style heater that vents out the bottom, into the crawl space.   I started wondering how long I could live without water if I had to special order another heater.  I was imagining hauling jugs of water to flush toilets & shower and using bottled water for cooking and drinking.  It was not a pretty picture in my imagination!

Plumber Griffin arrived after lunch and diagnosed the problem as a leaking water heater.  Ugh, but no surprise.

He called and discussed it with Ross (the business owner) and they offered me one solution, replace the water heater with a conventional heater with power vent.  Ross said he has no confidence in the floor vent models and finds them to have a very short lifespan.  So, I was eager to accept their one option.  This wil be the 3rd water heater that I have purchased for this house, I would like it to be my last.

Griffin capped off the leaking heater, drained it and prepared what he could for the replacement, which was planned for the next day.  In the meantime, I could have cold water in the whole house, yippee!  A person can make hot water, but you can't make water!  (Unless you want to melt snow that is.) Flushing toilets is a convenience that I very much appreciate. 

Mid day on Tuesday, Griffin & Ross showed up with the new heater.  They worked together to pull out the old, covered the hole in the floor and set the new heater in the closet.  Then Griffin set about to replumb the new equipment.

By about 6pm Tuesday night, I had hot water again and a very professional installation of the new heater.

I have a bunch of photos below, not in chronological order but I'll add a comment to each to give it some context.

A professional installation with new shutoff to the water heater in case of future issues.
(The way it should have been done when this place was first plumbed)

A 40 gallon water heater.  You can see the little black leak detector I replaced as insurance.

Leak checking.  Since I have to sense of smell, this gave me great peace of mind.

The new heater in place and installed.

A nice vent installation, such an improvement from what was there.

Getting there, just need to add the vent.

Starting to haul out his tools.

Old piping, it looks so gross now compared to the new.

All lines secured and organized. 
New pressure gauge for the pressure tank too.

I think the Culligan serviceman will be happy about this too.  The filter casing that he has to undo is properly secured now.

My first peek at the new heater in place.
Nice plywood covering that gross hole in the floor.

This was gross!!
The old heater vented to insulation below the utility closet.  
Very Gross.

The old.

New heater on the porch waiting to come in.

I haven't received the bill for services yet, I'm sure it will be a whopper, but I know that this had to be done.  

Now, on the lowest setting, the water is as hot as is needed.  My shower is now hot again.  I didn't realize how bad the old one was performing.  I'm looking forward to seeing my gas usage with the new one, I believe it will be much lower.

I have peace of mind now about the hot water.  The old heater was acting weird for a long time.  I had to re-light the pilot light often.  Good riddance!

Griffin is a nice young man.  I was very curious to see the work progressing and he was not bothered by my checking in to see what was what.  He was also very compassionate and continued to say how sorry he was that this had happened to me.  If only it had been  his fault, then I would have had someone to be mad at, ha!

So, for now, all the water is where it is supposed to be, fingers crossed!