Home ownership continued…
2 weeks ago I started to deal with my first big home project. My water heater died. Yep, flooding and all it completly died. The flooding only extended for half of the laundry room which luckly wasnt too bad. However it did reach the carpet and soaked in about 2 feet.
To tackle the repair first we went and bought a steam-vac. After about 3 hrs of cleaning/steaming/draining of water and carpet ( around 1am), we decided to call it a night.
One week goes by because for some reason my finances are all out of whack, but once I have the cash on hand I make the purchase of a new water heater. Of course they dont have the exact same one I had because it was installed in 1987 (I guess it reached its’ productive life cycle). Take the heater home and find out that one, its fairly taller than the old one and two, it doesnt fully fit into the space due to the height and the humidifyer installed into the furnance. Easy fix, remove the humidifyer.
Once the humidifyer was removed it was all fairly easy install after that. Pipes sweated, 3 times because we forgot to put the coupler on before sweating the flange to the pipe. Once all was installed the moment of truth had come, starting up the beast. Hold primer, press ignitor and…. NOTHING. Pilot doesnt light. Air is in the gas line and its 8:45pm. Some of the ideas for a solution to the problem was, turn on and off the gas at the cut-off, unsweat pipes and let gas flow, or hold down primer longer and then try and ignite. Last one worked cause all the others had almost a 100% chance of eyebrow loss or more.
All in all, the installation was a success and now the basement doesnt flood and I have hot water. Deaths usually come in 3’s though…crossing fingers nothing else goes.
