Water Heater Crisis
Tuesday December 7, 2004
We watched the movie Mind Storm on tv. It was late and we were going to bed when Faol heard a strange noise coming from the kitchen area. It turned out to be the water heater spraying all over the service porch. He quickly ran about getting shoes, and clothes, and a flashlight so he could dash out to get tools from the shed, and shut the water off to the whole house from outside. He came back in and looked at the water heater trying to find out where it had been leaking from, and to make sure that it wasn’t leaking anymore. He said let’s go to bed. So we did.
This morning he got up and looked it over again. I pointed out the shut off valve on the water heater so we tried turning that off and the rest of the water on, and it worked – he wasn’t sure where the leak was or whether the shut off worked what with it being so old. So we have water in the house again, just not hot water.
He spent pretty much all day online, calling around, or taking things apart. It turns out the sacrificial anode rod was not only sacrificed but has been eaten down to a tiny nub instead of the couple feet long it should be. That means the water tank itself is most likely in pretty bad condition and could spring a leak any time so we are getting a new cheap-as-we-can-find-quickly one as he has other plans for his water system later on. We went to Home Depot to look at their water heaters, then came home for more online researching of pipe fittings, and threading -- straight or reverse. I think we should go and get the water heater though and get done with it. But I am not the one that will be attempting to disconnect the old one and reconnect the new one or be paying for it either.
And of course we have a guest coming this weekend so need to get it done by then as well as having hot water for us. Faol would really hate not having his hot baths that long.
I have a dinner date this evening with the lovely and talented, Korina, which
since Faol took off work to deal with this problem he will be able to attend.
She is a friend of us both and would be delighted to see him too but didn’t
have any available daytime to meet with us on his work schedule.
Copyright © 2004 Kyril Oakwind