Easter weekend, and the water heater decides to blow...

[Auggie]

No hot water this weekend unless we pay up the wazoo.

WHY DO THESE THINGS ALWAYS HAPPEN ON THE HOLIDAYS????

:banghead:

[DevonRex]

1. I feel your pain. My stove died 2 days before Thanksgiving.

Appliances are evil.

[rainbow4321]

2. Oh..I KNOW the feeling....mine went out Thursday night

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=8679891&mesg_id=8679891

And now....I have industrial sized dehumidifiers and fans in the 2 rooms that flooded. The pics below are the family room, my daughter's room has 4 more of these suckers in it. I keep waiting for my little Jack Russell to get sucked up into one of them. There are about 8 of them downstairs.
And, BTW, if any cleanup crew comes and uses them..make SURE they use several different outlets, not all in one room. They blew a fuse four times (lights went out) before they figured out the right combo of outlets to use.

So far, they have said the carpet is not saveable..I wanted hardwood floors down there ANYway but this really was not the way I had planned for that to happen. Insurance will pay for the flooring and everything.
Things I've learned:
Your floorboards are absorbing the water, also. Make sure whoever does your cleanup/inspection process checks them with their little electronic gadget to prove that. They tore mine out this morning. Any furniture sitting in the flooded area?? Put aluminum foil under the feet of the furniture (per my insurance company). Except once the water disaster guys came out they put little blue blocks under the furniture.
And yes, it always DOES happen on the weekend. A few years back when my house was hit by lightening..it was on Memorial Weekend and it was the longest weekend of my life (turns out we had to stay in a hotel for like 10 days.)

[Auggie]

4. Many thanks for the advice

We caught it in time, I think. Not too much flooding, though I never thought about the sub-floor. Plumber is coming this morning to disconnect the water heater, then I can turn water to the house back on. I hope we can afford a tankless unit.

[rainbow4321]

6. Price around...and ask to see the repair guy's license when he arrives

Even to just get a regular water heater, I called three different companies and was given quotes between $650 and $2000 (!!!!!).

The $2000 company insisted they HAD to come out to give me a quote, said they would waive the visit fee. He pulls out his hand book and I see $2000 is the CHEAPEST one they had. WTF????? Told him about the 650 and 800 quote and he then went into a speel about all the bells and whistles their's had and on and on. He called his company and they agreed to lower the price to $1100. FINALLY got it thru to him that I was not budging and sure as hell was not buying from them. You have no idea how many times I had to say "Plano may be a rich city, but **I** am NOT one of the rich residents...single mom, kid in college...no, no, did I say no yet???" Pretty much had to escort him off my driveway and to his truck.
Basically trying to tell me that the cheaper bidders were not using licensed plumbers (I checked the license card of the guy who put it in, he was--in TX it's a little blue card they carry in their wallet).

Oh, and I used the wrong desciption in my previous post...it's the **baseboards** that absorbed the water...that little strip of wood between your floor and the wall that goes around the room. Those got pulled out today cuz they were still soaking wet.

[Auggie]

8. Well, it's toast -- leaking everywhere. Funny thing is,

the plumber told us to go buy our water heater and they'd install it. Told us we'd save a lot of money over buying through them. Wow -- honesty! We'll need to estimate the tankless route because installation is a big question mark in our house. I'll know on Monday.

[Gormy Cuss]

3. Another here to feel your pain...ours crapped out on Christmas eve.

I think water heaters are designed to fail near holidays.

[seemunkee]

5. Your faith is being tested?

I woke up one AM to find ~9 inches of water filling the entire basement. Burned out the motor on our furnace and destroyed several hundred comics.

[SeattleGirl]

7. Mine blew a week and a half ago. Fortunately, it didn't lose all the

water, and it's sitting on a concrete floor. Still sucked though.

[texanwitch]

9. The things you own know when the holidays or the weekend comes.

Our water heater is outside, in a outhouse looking add on to the house.

That is the old fashion place to have a water heater.

If it floods, it just floods the yard.

[Deep13]

10. Perhaps it will come back to life tomorrow?

Stranger things have happened.:shrug:

Anyway, hope it works out for you.

[Auggie]

11. LOL -- yes, resurrected!

Oh my, that is funny.

[johnnie]

12. My drain valve on my water heater leaked a little

Now it is worse and I have to fix it today. Owning a house blows.

[old mark]

13. We had a massive electric cable short out on Labor Day Sunday,

just before the Eagles game.

I can't remember how much it cost to get the electrician on a holiday weekend, but I have bought used cars for less.

mark