We have no hot water!

"We have no hot water!" I yelled through the house from our shower. I had turned on the faucet in the shower about midway and waited for my water to heat up. I continued to wait...and wait...and nothing! No hot water! Well, Sally hadn't been running the dishwasher or the washing machine, so what happened? I diagnosed a heating element must have gone bad. They do when you have hard water and lime deposits short these heating rods. I went to Lowe's, bought two new elements and the little tool to install them and got back home ready to solve my no hot water problem. That was not the problem! The real problem was water in the trip pan beneath the water heater had entered the bottom of the heater itself and eventually over the past five years slowly saturated the internal insulation, which caused rust to get to everything inside the water heater. The electrical connections, the elements and the tank itself - all eaten up with rust!

It was the weekend and no one to call. At least not without an emergency, weekend service charge. Thankfully, my neighbor saw me standing outside scratching my head and looking perplexed at the area where the deceased hot water was exposed. He came over and volunteered to help me. I have a good neighbor who is young, strong and mechanically trained in such problems. I went back to Lowe's returned the elements not needed now and purchased a new hot water heater. The next morning our new hot water heater was installed, and I declared loudly, "We got hot water!" Thanks to my great neighbor!

What did all this teach me? Maintenance! Every once in a while, we need to look in on our appliances like hot water heaters, A/C units, propane tanks, water pumps etc. to make sure they are operating as designed and they don't have a little problem that is going to become a big one later on. Expensive lesson learned.

Friends, as I learn my hard lessons about such difficulties, I'll try to share my new knowledge with you here on "whats-up-melton.blogspot.com" so maybe you can do better!

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