Came back from running errands this morning to a wet basement and no hot water. Turns out those two things were related. Hot water heater gave up the ghost and sprung a leak. I did notice it sounded extra gurgle-y after I got out of the shower this morning.
I was planning to upgrade to a heat pump unit soon anyway, but I ended up having to get another gas one because I need it now and don’t have time to run a new 220 line from the breaker box. Should have done this last year when I originally planned, damn it.
Ordered it at 1:59 PM and just barely made the 2pm cutoff for same day delivery, so that’s nice. So I got to spend my evening replacing the hot water heater. Yay :-/
Update: I have successfully replaced the hot water heater. By myself. Uphill, in the snow, both ways. It was also kind of weird/sad since today is 1 year since my dad died and he would have helped me and kept me from fucking anything up. I’ve helped him and grandpa do this kind of stuff many times growing up so had to channel that energy and power through.
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It was also kind of weird/sad since today is 1 year since my dad died and he would have helped me and kept me from fucking anything up. I’ve helped him and grandpa do this kind of stuff many times growing up so had to channel that energy and power through.
Wholesome. Knowledge getting passed down. Soon you’ll be teaching your kid(s).
Good luck to you!
What amazes me is that every hot water heater of roughly the same size across all brands uses the exact same position for the gas input so you can just swap the stub from the union to the new tank and it’ll connect right up. This has been the case for tanks I’ve replaced that were originally put in 30 years ago.
Yep, at least according to the images of the one I just bought so here’s hoping this goes smoothly. Hopefully the intake/output connections are the same size too. It didn’t list them and I didn’t have time to read the manual without missing the same-day delivery cutoff.
If the water lines aren’t lined up, a couple of sharkbite connectors and a bit of pex can go a long way to making that easy. The exhaust might be more of a pain if it’s shorter than the old one.
I just got the old one disconnected and pulled out and the new one unboxed, and thankfully everything is in the exact same spots and same sizes/threads as the old one. After I eat a quick bite, I’m gonna clean behind and around where it goes and should have the new one installed shortly after. 🤞
Godspeed.
I had wanted to switch to an electric heater too as we are working towards getting roof solar panels, and while inspecting the heater to see what needed to be done to convert to electric saw that it was leaking and had to be replaced yesterday. So i too have a new gas water heater.
Oof. I literally know your pain.
I want to go solar so badly, and yeah, the heat pump model was toward that goal. I may still go ahead and put money aside for it (they’re like $1500+ and this gas one was $500). I could probably Craigslist the gas one and get a little bit of money back I suppose.
CL is what I plan to do with this one too. I have not heard of heat pump water heaters, I will look into those. I had planned to just switch to an identical, but electric water heater.
