Just four days ago, we had to have someone come out and service our furnace - a fan stopped working and thus, no heat in the house. That wasn't planned. Unfortunately, today was planned - by Carol. After almost 18 years in the house, she decides we need a new hot water heater. We were still getting hot water (though she claims not as much as we used to), and let's face it - 18 years on a hot water heater is just asking for trouble. So today, we're doing a preemptive strike by replacing it. Our friend Damian in coming over with his dad and they're going to handle the swap. They're over at about 8:30 and start working on the disconnection. Well, we knew we were in for a problem when: 1) when disconnecting the feed into the tank, you look at the inside of the pipe connected to the tank and it's full of gunk and crud, and 2) when opening the tank's drain, nothing is coming out. The means the tank has to be moved out to the curb full of 40 gallons of water and God knows how much sediment. That wasn't easy, but we finally got it out to the parkway, where Damian just tips it over. The thud of the tank hitting the lawn actually bounced me in the air (admittedly, just barely). So at 9:30, we're off to Home Depot and find a tank that looks almost identical the the old one (meaning - the piping doesn't have to be redone!). We're back to the house by 10. Damian says they have about an hour of work ahead of them.
The tank finally goes "live" at 2 in the afternoon. Yes, everything fit, but apparently sweating the joints and getting the whole thing leak-free just took a bit longer than they thought. It didn't help that everytime they lit the torch to heat the pipe the hard wired smoke detector right above their heads would go off. Since it's hard-wired to the house, there was no way to disconnect it. Anyway, we're now have drip-free hot water coming from a tank that should last at least 9 years...
2006- Not Average
2005- Noisy
2004- Boring day
2003- Oscar Night