When I bought my house in February 2009, I thought I did really well. I got a decent deal on price, it was in a good location - all that. Boy was I mistaken. Don't get me wrong, I love my house, but what I really bought was the money pit. When I had the house inspected, one of the things the inspector pointed out was that I should really invest in getting a new water heater because the amount of energy waste in that large of a tank for a single woman in a house by herself was going to be astronomical. The one in place was 82 gallons and, at one point in time, powered by a solar panel on the roof. That panel had long since stopped working, and the repair cost I was were given was in excess of 7 grand. Not feasible.
So, when I had the roof re-sealed – a roof, by the way, that they don’t make in Florida anymore, I had the roofers remove the panel and take it away. That was about six months ago, give or take.
I hadn’t replaced the tank because it was going to be expensive to hire a plumber (and turns out, probably an electrician) to put it in and take away the old one. Then, by some happy chance, I met someone who volunteered to change it out for me when I mentioned the big dumb thing in conversation.
So yesterday, I got a new 30 gallon water heater. I am so excited about it.
All told, it took us 1 to trip the store to buy the tank, and 4 more trips to the hardware store over the course of the day to buy parts. Although, the final trip was to buy stuff we didn’t know we were going to need, when the wiring ampage was too low for the new tank.
As luck would also have it, while we were installing the new tank, a neighbor knocked in my door to ask what our intentions were with the old beast that was at the moment, sitting on the side of the house. I had really been worrying about what to do with it, because it seriously weighed like a hundred pounds and I had very real doubts that the garbage men would heave it up into their truck. I had visions of having this thing in my yard for ages. It was a real concern. I could have hugged the 16 year old boy who asked if he and his mom could have it.
After we got the tank all hooked up, we discovered that we needed to create a new circuit because the old tank ran on a 120 and we needed 220. Luckily, Bob was working at the Home Depot yesterday. I really like Bob when I have electrical stuff to do, because he seriously knows everything. It turned out that we didn’t need to do nearly as much as we thought we did, except it also turned out that we needed to run the new wire from the laundry room where the tank was, to the breaker box, which is half way across the house and outside. I have some patchwork to complete in my family room now, and an orange wire to find a way to hide, but that’s ok.
This my new "cute" water heater. White, not brown, and 1/3 the height. Those lines I drew in, demonstrate the height of the old monster, and copper that went all the way to the roof. You can also tell where the old one stood by the paint on the wall. I did my best to reach around behind the old tank, but since I'm no Stretch Armstrong, it wasn't easy.
The old water heater was seriously obnoxious, and I am stoked about my new one.
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