home disaster one
There were a ton of plans for Sunday, most of them of the domestic type. All were shifted when we awoke to the following:
We called our home warranty company, who sent a plumber out and said they’d only pay for replacement of the part itself (in this case, the water heater). The plumber went over all the labor charges and quoted us $700 to have the water heater swapped out and everything brought up to code.
Since we don’t have that kind of money laying around, we opted to cash out the warranty company on the claim, and do the work ourselves. The warranty company is paying out $280, we scored a new water heater from Sears for just over $400. Ten hours, several trips to the grill for hot dogs, several snappy words and remorseful apologies, and two rides to Home Depot later, and the new water heater was hooked up with no leaks. Total out of pocket cost: $170.
There was a LOT of water. The previous owner hooked the water heater up backwards. The shutoff valve was on the pipe which sent the heated water back into the house, instead of on the pipe from the incoming water main. Water ruined all the wood, beams, and particle board the appliance was resting on. It didn’t quite matter, as the “closet” which housed the water heater was apparently a bit of an afterthought in the design of the house. There was no structural importance to the beams, as found by Eilene’s endless crawling to and from the edge of the hot attic with a flashlight.
The whole “closet” needed to be ripped out, and the sheet rock removed to see exactly what we were dealing with.
Here’s the finished product. Eilene got stainless steel hose to replace the shitty half worn out copper flex hose, and we put it on a water heater stand to keep it elevated the required 18 inches until we have time to finish all the walls.
