Replacing a Broken Water Heater
January 4, 2009
Happy New Year! I guess our new years resolution should be to get caught up on blog posts…
Here’s one from around Thanksgiving time – we got back from a trip to Portland and discovered our water heater had broken & the garage had flooded…
The first step when you have a leaking water heater is to turn off the water (There should be a lever towards the top of the water heater). Next thing you need to do is diagnose if the heater needs replacement, or if it’s simply a faulty pipe. Good rule of thumb is if it’s leaking from somewhere near the top of the water heater, it’s probably a pipe. Find the leak and replace the faulty part. If it’s leaking from the bottom, the water heater has corroded and needs to be replaced. Ours was definitely leaking from the bottom and needed replacing. I’d gotten as far as draining the water heater (you can connect a hose water and your plants, wash your car, or fill up a kiddie pool with warm water and let the kids go nuts), then went down to home depot to check out water heater prices ($600-$900!!!)
Luckily Flathead remembered we had a 1 year home warranty when we bought the house and they’d replace the water heater for a $45 deductible. Unfortunately it was a Saturday, so we had to sit out the weekend with no hot water, but them’s the breaks for free stuff.
In case you don’t know the difference between Homeowner’s Insurance & a Home Warranty, the former only protects the structure of your house in case of a disaster, and the latter covers items & appliances within your house (water heater, air conditioner, dishwasher, etc..). I’d think most of the time a home warranty probably wouldn’t be worth the money, but if you’re moving into a new house that has old appliances, it’d be highly beneficial to negotiate it into the escrow agreement. It saved us about $800…
Anyway, here’s what the brand spanking new water heater looks like, complete with an overflow pan which the previous owners didn’t install before:
Since we got the replacement installed for free, I don’t have pictures of the extra steps involved in replacing the heater yourself (it would have been kind of awkward standing behind the repairman taking pictures…), so if you need further instructions, here’s a good resource:
