When It Rains...
Annoying weekend with a lot of work and little accomplishment. I had Friday off, but started out Thursday night with the discovery the water heater at home was leaking. So that night was a lot of mitigation - soaking up water with towels to throw into the dryer, shutting off the water line into the heater, setting the fan to blow over wet carpet, etc.
Friday, I started out calling plumbers to come look at it. That seemed reasonable. The first call, they said they couldn't get anyone out before Monday. I went on to the next where they took my info and said I'd be called back. Over the next couple hours of waiting, I learned a little and drew some conclusions. For one thing, I saw part of the back of the water heater looked buckled. It was against a wall, so I couldn't get a good luck, but by the time I emailed and finally got a reply saying that second plumber I called wouldn't be available for a couple weeks, I'd drawn a few conclusions:
1) The water heater needs to be replaced. It's the unit itself, which is probably original to the condos and potentially as much as 40 years old.
2) A certified plumber might make me feel more confident about any replacement job, but it will cost me more, too.
3) The odds of me getting any plumber in over the weekend would be slim, at best.
So, Friday afternoon I started working toward replacing it myself. I looked up draining the tank and set about that. I drove out to Home Depot, where they employees less-than-helpfully directed me to the right aisle, then left me to my own devices. It's at this point, some additional concerns coalesced. For one, standard sedans are not good for carrying appliances, so I couldn't just pick one up and go. Additionally, I started having concerns about dimensions. The doorway to the space under the stairs where the water heater is installed is very narrow and the pipes are at a certain height. So anything too tall or wide wouldn't work. I got home and put in an inquiry on their web site about installation - the installer called me back to tell me they worked out of Albuquerque and could do the job, but with travel and all, it would be $1300. The water heaters I was looking at were more in the $500 +/- range, so that's a lot for travel and labor. Plus, he didn't ask anything about size limitations, which left me less than confident.
Friday night, I settled on a model that seemed like it would fit and work - plus it was supposedly in stock locally. After agonizing over transportation options, I elected to just have it delivered. The site advertises "same day delivery if ordered before noon," so I figured best-case, it would show up Saturday.
Saturday, I heard nothing about possible delivery. I did, however, get the old water heater removed. This exposed that it had split along a seam somehow. In the process, I opened the hot water taps in the house to try to get everything out of those lines. And that is how I discovered the pipe under the upstairs bathroom sink had been corroding through. In retrospect, I had seen corrosion on the pipe and probably should have been more worried, but never found actual water leakage. This time, though, I had water pooling in the bath room - so there was more scrambling and drying out, and another thing to research and repair.
Sunday, I set about fixing that, at least. I got parts from the closer hardware store only to find they didn't fit. Then I went back to Home Depot to pick up appropriately-sized pieces. On the way, I was called and told the water heater wouldn't be delivered until Wednesday. Oof. If their delivery service is that backed up, maybe they would afford another truck/team? Whatever, it's not like I had any better options. So, I get parts, I get them installed, the sink works, though I'm watching one of the joints and may need to adjust a bit, but that's minor.
Somewhere in the process of everything, I think I closed one of the taps, and water ends up running back out of the (now-disconnected) hot water pipe, spilling water where the heater was again. I remain baffled at how there's still water in the hot water pipes through the unit. I am no plumber, but shouldn't the hot water for a house be fed entirely from the hot water heater? Whatever the case, I'm left scrambling to mitigate water damage again and improvising a way to run water off so that won't happen again in the meantime.
And that's where the weekend left off. Floors are still drying. I'm tired of things being wet. I also need to go a few days with no hot water. That's inconvenient rather than critical, but washing dishes in cold water doesn't feel very effective and totally-cold showers are highly unpleasant to someone who prefers them on the hot side.
Friday, I started out calling plumbers to come look at it. That seemed reasonable. The first call, they said they couldn't get anyone out before Monday. I went on to the next where they took my info and said I'd be called back. Over the next couple hours of waiting, I learned a little and drew some conclusions. For one thing, I saw part of the back of the water heater looked buckled. It was against a wall, so I couldn't get a good luck, but by the time I emailed and finally got a reply saying that second plumber I called wouldn't be available for a couple weeks, I'd drawn a few conclusions:
1) The water heater needs to be replaced. It's the unit itself, which is probably original to the condos and potentially as much as 40 years old.
2) A certified plumber might make me feel more confident about any replacement job, but it will cost me more, too.
3) The odds of me getting any plumber in over the weekend would be slim, at best.
So, Friday afternoon I started working toward replacing it myself. I looked up draining the tank and set about that. I drove out to Home Depot, where they employees less-than-helpfully directed me to the right aisle, then left me to my own devices. It's at this point, some additional concerns coalesced. For one, standard sedans are not good for carrying appliances, so I couldn't just pick one up and go. Additionally, I started having concerns about dimensions. The doorway to the space under the stairs where the water heater is installed is very narrow and the pipes are at a certain height. So anything too tall or wide wouldn't work. I got home and put in an inquiry on their web site about installation - the installer called me back to tell me they worked out of Albuquerque and could do the job, but with travel and all, it would be $1300. The water heaters I was looking at were more in the $500 +/- range, so that's a lot for travel and labor. Plus, he didn't ask anything about size limitations, which left me less than confident.
Friday night, I settled on a model that seemed like it would fit and work - plus it was supposedly in stock locally. After agonizing over transportation options, I elected to just have it delivered. The site advertises "same day delivery if ordered before noon," so I figured best-case, it would show up Saturday.
Saturday, I heard nothing about possible delivery. I did, however, get the old water heater removed. This exposed that it had split along a seam somehow. In the process, I opened the hot water taps in the house to try to get everything out of those lines. And that is how I discovered the pipe under the upstairs bathroom sink had been corroding through. In retrospect, I had seen corrosion on the pipe and probably should have been more worried, but never found actual water leakage. This time, though, I had water pooling in the bath room - so there was more scrambling and drying out, and another thing to research and repair.
Sunday, I set about fixing that, at least. I got parts from the closer hardware store only to find they didn't fit. Then I went back to Home Depot to pick up appropriately-sized pieces. On the way, I was called and told the water heater wouldn't be delivered until Wednesday. Oof. If their delivery service is that backed up, maybe they would afford another truck/team? Whatever, it's not like I had any better options. So, I get parts, I get them installed, the sink works, though I'm watching one of the joints and may need to adjust a bit, but that's minor.
Somewhere in the process of everything, I think I closed one of the taps, and water ends up running back out of the (now-disconnected) hot water pipe, spilling water where the heater was again. I remain baffled at how there's still water in the hot water pipes through the unit. I am no plumber, but shouldn't the hot water for a house be fed entirely from the hot water heater? Whatever the case, I'm left scrambling to mitigate water damage again and improvising a way to run water off so that won't happen again in the meantime.
And that's where the weekend left off. Floors are still drying. I'm tired of things being wet. I also need to go a few days with no hot water. That's inconvenient rather than critical, but washing dishes in cold water doesn't feel very effective and totally-cold showers are highly unpleasant to someone who prefers them on the hot side.
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