Just when you think it is safe to breathe… LOL
November 29th, 2008 by WaltFirst, I hope everybody had a super Thanksgiving!!
Friday, I had the nice experience of discovering that the hot water heater ran out of hot water when it shouldn’t have. Stepping out of the bathroom’s hallway door I discover that the hallway was full of water, or rather, the carpet was full of water. Opening the closet where the hot water heater is located, I found that it was gushing water from the top access door!
After an emergency shopping trip after letting work know that I had a bit of a problem the real fun began. (BTW: I found out that Lowes isn’t responsible for tying cargo down if you rent their trucks, but they didn’t say so until the new hot water heater blew over…they made good, thankfully.) I couldn’t get a replacement unit that was anywhere near the same size or shape as the old one. If I had bought a “normal”, non energy efficient one things might have been different, but the estimated operational costs vs. purchase price lead me to get the efficient model.
So, after a ton of carpentry tearing out floor trimwork and part of the door frame, I finally got it in place. I used this as an opportunity to put in an expansion tank as at some time after the original heater was installed, the county put check valves in at the water meter, which meant that any pressure buildup had nowhere to go (remember that water expands when it is heated, so when you cool the water in the heater by taking a bath, shower, doing laundry, etc, it expands as it is heated back up) unless you have an expansion tank to allow the water to compress the air in the bladder as it expands.
Amazingly enough all my pipe sweat work was leak free right from the start! I did find that the valve to cut off the water supply to the heater now leaks. I had thought about replacing it at the same time I replaced the heater, but didn’t want to tear out the wall to do so as ithe valve is right at the wall…guess what?? I get to do this fun chore anyway – with the heater in place!!! But all isn’t lost as I am going to replace that potential problem child of a saddle valve that feeds the icemaker with a real valve and install a master valve for the house inside the house instead of 40 feet away from the access hatch in the crawlspace.
OK, enough whining…that clears the space between my ears for more stuff.
