Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - Why you should listen to your hot water tank

Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Why you should listen to your hot water tank
A few of you might remember me mentioning a couple of months ago how we should get a new hot water tank. The water looked dingy, so we figured (and were given advice) to drain it and give it a nice rinse. So we did that, a couple of times in a row, yet.........still dingy water. So we figured that we'd have to set aside some dough to purchase a new tank. There are a wide variety out there, but I'd like to have something efficient and as large as we have now (50 gallons). I can deal with dingy water for a couple of months until we do it. Well, apparently the hot water tank had a different idea on what it was going to do in the meantime. Got a call from Brad about 11:30 this morning relaying his story of how a loud crash woke him up, he investigated to find a laundry room full of water and further investigated to find a very wet kitchen ceiling and a hanging pot rack that was............well, no longer hanging. At this point I could only think of the hot water tank, so I told him my theory and gave instructions to shut off the water and gas to it. Driving home I was terribly afraid that something worse happend - burst pipes or something of that nature, but was relieved to find that there really was no other explanation. The bottom seems to have just fallen out of the 12 year old tank (that's about their lifetime for anyone wondering) and when the laundry room could take no more it found another route out - through the floor apparently. 50 gallons at once - I'm surprised the entire 2nd floor isn't soaked. Anyway, now I'm off to hunt for a new tank at Lowes, Home Depot, Sears - the usual suspects. Nationwide will be coming tomorrow to decide who will come to fix our ceiling and such. I hope this results in new lighting fixtures for the kitchen - I hate the ones that are in there now.