06-I-2006.
[This whole story was, for years, on sGradlj.com as a separate file, I'm just retrofitting it here, including some reformatting - see Notes - and inserted links where they fit.]
The old water heater definitely went whacko. When it got turned on, water vapor would appear around the upper heater, and the signal light would occasionally blink. When we pulled the insulation apart around it, we saw it was all quite rusty (except the screws which held the wires - they were still shiny) and wet. The edges around the bottom of the heater were always rusty, we knew that from the beginning, which was in july 2004 when we bought this house.
So we decided to buy a new one, possibly smaller. Forty gallons is a bit too much for us - we had a 50 liter one back home, and with a 2KW heater it heated up in 20 minutes, and there were five of us in the house. Furthermore, our washing mashine had its own heater, and we never had a dishwasher (still don't). Our current washing machine is one of those energy-efficient ones, which means it doesn't pull that much hot water anyway.
So, go web and see what's out there. Let's see - Lowe's has a deal with Whirlpool, and Sears seems to have one with GE, and Home Depot seems to have only flowthrough (aka "point of use" aka "tankless") and mobile home and other special models.
2nd day - saturday
Visiting Go in Richmond, we carried our towels and clean underwear, so we can wash in their bathroom. Just like last winter, when we were still dismantling the walls and everything from the old bathroom. Took us until may to have an operable tub, and until october to finish the tiling, painting, lavabo etc. Actually, still needs some trim - like a mirror and the doors.
3rd day - sunday
We wake up in a cooling house. There's no power. Calling Dominion VA Power, after typing about two dozen digits (forgot that they don't have our phone number on file, so had to use SSN for ID), I hear the automated voice saying that "there is a massive outage in your area due to a vehicular accident". Translated, some moron has mowed a pole.
Why do they have to have cables on poles everywhere? Because it's cheaper. Well, cheaper to do the first time around, but then, had the cables been underground, there wouldn't have been so many outages. And not only from traffic, but also from any stronger wind, which usually breaks a few heavier branches which then fall on the wires. Not to mention that this is coast, there isn't much topsoil, and the trees' roots go less than a foot deep, because there's nothing edible below that, and any hurricane is about to topple many. Did I mention that we had no power for eleven days after Isabel? Two poles were in the pond, and they just fell. And they simply lost a fortune on field crew costs, having had to call extras from North Carolina. But then, it may be that the insurance covers their cost - and nobody covers ours.
Off we go shopping until the power returns. Looking at Lowe's first - they don't really have anything at 30 gallons. And generally there's to choose between Whirlpool and Whirlpool. Off to Home Depot. They have... well, can't remember anymore, probably General Electric (and Lieutenant Gas?), and then it doesn't matter. The guy there says there's only one manufacturer, Rheem, and they actually make all the heaters for Sears, Whirlpool and whoever. One only gets to choose between the label on the box. We took the lists of available heaters from both Lowe's and the Depot, wrote down a few prices on them, to decide over a coffee.
Coming home we run into a detour - a sizable chunk of the area is cordoned off, there's half a dozen white trucks - Virginia Power at work - plus a couple of police cars under flashing lights in the middle of it. So a three-lane main street traffic is diverted through our area, where there even aren't any white stripes on the pavement, though the roads are wide enough for two trucks to pass each other between two other parked on the sides. We eventually get home and make a coffee on the little gas rešo. Power returns around 14:30.
Cut off the water to the old heater. Then used the little electric saw to cut the pipes. I really hate the way they do the copper plumbing around here, soldering everything, and when you need to remove something, you have to cut it. Once soldered, it can't be unsoldered properly, it always clings somewhere. And when you have to reconnect, you have to solder it in most unreachable places. When they first put the pipes into the walls, the walls weren't covered - there was only the framing. They had all the access they needed.
And then we took it out. Which wasn't easy - it is stuck in narrow space behind the crapper, under the staircase. And the space between the seat's tank and the corner of the wall is about 17", while the heater is 18" in diameter. Tried to remove the seat, but the screws that hold it to the piece of plastic in the floor are rusty. At least it can swivel a dozen degrees, so we pushed it as far as it can go and took out the heater. Rusty muck dripping everywhere. It's so good that we still don't have any carpet downstairs, because it would have been damaged. The tiles only need some washing, and so does the pavement in the patio. I took off the exhaust piping off of it, as a souvenier. Later I'll see I'll need it.
We buy one for 290$ (more or less - I don't care that it says 289,99 or anything, with tax it's always more anyway), plus a pair of flexible hoses to connect the water. Luckily, it's not as heavy as the old one (probably because there's no leftover water in it), and it fits the backseat of the Corolla. The traffic is still a mess, but I know some shortcuts, which are usually slower. Not today. Whenever there's a traffic constipation, most of the people here (namely, the vojska and the tourists, who don't have the time to learn the streets) take the main roads. I feel like such a native...
The new heater comes with two sizable chunks of thick insulation for the hot water pipes. I put them into place, though it won't matter much - because the next few yards, this pipe goes through the concrete foundation slab. And I don't believe it's insulated down there.
Manouvering it into place wasn't easy. Its diameter is 19 3/4 inches (almost exactly 50cm, but they won't tell you that), so we have to pull it above the vukašin (v. house dictionary), which is not the hard part. Lowering it down is. I've devised some noose from leftover carpet cutout strip, but there's no way you can hold it properly over a toilet. It goes down at some speed, and I could only slow it down. It went the last five inches on its own, and my wife's elbow gets caught between it and the wall. She sounds really bad, but it turns out not that serious in the end.
We decide we're tired enough for the day. We'll connect it tomorrow.
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