Jefke.com

riveting title, i know- btw anyone know how to say that word–primer. i always thought it was prime-r like to prime an engine or put a coat of primer on before painting, lately i’ve heard “prim-r” like prim and proper, prim-er. somebody make sense of all this.

anyway…
it figures that, out of all the hotwater heaters that the fabulous previous owner/renovator could have installed in the fort–he chose this one (also mentioned here )what’s particularly funny is i read this post on consumerist and thought “wow, that sucks for those people”. well turns out i am one of those people

as i mentioned last week or so, the pilot light went out, and some how i was able to light it. well saturday night, the same thing happened. and i couldn’t get the thing re-lit. so i thought “hmm perhaps the interwebs have some wisdom on this” so i searched on the model, and boom, i find the class action lawsuit info..

so i’m thinking, oh that’s great–so i call around to see how much service would be on it–only place i could get to answer on a sunday morning was 89 bucks for the first 30 mins, then 30 bucks each additional 15 mins, plus parts. oh great. so you figure, if this thermocouple thing that supposedly breaks every 3 months, goes out 4 times, i’ve prolly already bought a new heater.

so i start looking at new heaters. information is a terrible thing, i think- i start reading around and find out that pretty much all water heaters have some sort of problem. apparently new legislation in 2003 requires heaters to automatically shut off if there are flammable vapors present. sound good, right? well, it seems the way that different manufacturers have gotten around this problem all have their draw backs. on top of the seemingly purposely defective thermocouple thingy our whirlpool draws air up through the bottom of the heater for combustion. so it’s totally prone to clogging and shutting down and malfunctioning. i suspect the blair witch basement is not a good environment for this type of set up.

the GE heaters carried by Home depot are made by rheem, and both of product lines draw their air from the side of the tank around the bottom, which is prolly better-thing is, from what i read, their safety device for that vapor present thing blows a fuse that requires the replacement of the entire heater. which sucks.

So my mind starts wandering and i think of my fond memories of our bosch tankless heater in beligum–unlimited hot water- lower costs, reliable–and a really satisfying flame thrower noise when it kicks on. so i start researching those. well the cost 2x’s as much, and almost all installs require some sort of custom work–either with the exhaust duct work, the gas supply lines or with the water supply lines. seems that type of thing can cost a couple grand on its own and can take weeks. so i put that dream to bed.

My mother-in law had something of a minor hot water heater disaster a couple months a go, where the bottom seal of hers just rusted out and it flooded her basement, and she felt the service/install arm of the local gas/electric company had the best price/service. so i called them, their sales crew is not in on sundays, so i had to wait until yesterday to call them. this gave me another day to research different shit and basically paint my self into a corner of knowing too much about shit that never seems to work right.

finally i called them to pull the trigger. the sales guy was very good, very nice and had me measure some stuff to see if a new heater would fit. well if you go by the book, a 40 gal (like we had) would not. so he proposed a 30 gal. which would have sucked ass–i mean with the capt, we go through some hot water around here. so i sorta panicked. but in teh end there was nothing i could do. so authorized the credit card charge and waited for the installer to show up.

he did, and i showed him the blair witch cellar and said “ok the guy on the phone bascially made it sound like if we put in a 40 gal in here, we’d all die from improper ventilation. if there’s any wiggle room in this, i’d sure like a 40 gal tank.” he said, “yeah we can do that”. yay! upside better, bigger heater, downside, another day without hot water.

so what were we doing, you know, to stay clean? well natty’s mom lives 2 miles away, so we showered there, adn for the capt, we boiled water on the stove camping style for his bath. natty  took over dish duty as she had some sort of system for heating water and washing.  so you know were were getting by. but fuck. i really like a shower in the morning.

so fast forward to the next day. Installer guy calls right when he’s supposed, and shows up 5 mins before 10, the end of his window. he says it’ll be tight, but  it’d work. happiness washes over the jefke.

so i try not to annoy the guy and linger. but i love watching that sort of shit. he hooked up a little pump to drain the tank, then just set to work. i went up stairs for a few minutes and next thing i know the old tank it out in the back yard.  i ran down so that i could go in to the space behind the heater spot and the furnance, which hitherto has been blocked off for me. i dunno what i expected, but it was pretty underwhelming. i’m a freak. but anyway the installer guy informed me that the old heater’s gas fixtures were ‘not really on right–they were only hand tightened” that gives you a warm feeling.

turns out that the old heater was rusting out on top too b/c the cold water pipe wasn’t on right. so it would have gone in a year or so anyway.

so there you have it. 789 bucks for the heater and install, + 159 bucks for parts/valves he had to cut and replace, and some random number for a 3 year labor warranty. how’s that  fun post holidays kick in the balls. who said owning a home is cheaper?