Of the Heating of Water

Greetings and salutations!

I know it's been awhile, but we've been busy around here. I plan to blog more shortly, but I though I owed it to you, dear reader, at least an explanation of why my blog entries have been, as of late, lacking. I must warn you, this is going to be a loooong post.

Alesha gives a very gracious account of what happened, and I must say, I think the dialog she lists pretty much recalls our conversations verbatim. Last Wednesday, I noticed that a trickle of water was coming down from our water heater. Here's an indication of my plumbing knowledge: I couldn't remember if this was a normal thing or not. I called Alesha to see if she had noticed the leak, and she had not. I called my dad, Alesha's mom, and our contractor guy. They all said it was indeed a problem and that it shouldn't be put off. I toyed with the idea of getting a tankless heater. But in the end we decided that although they are a good thing in general, it would be too much money for our needs right now. Our contractor guy said he couldn't make it out right away to replace the thing, so I called my brother Michael, who was more than willing to come over and help me do an install.

So Friday I went to prepare the removal. I measured the heater; 43" tall. I disconnected the water and gas, and drained the water heater. It was drained freakishly quick. To get the water heater out, you can't just pull it from the closet; it's too skinny. There is a "secret passageway" under the stairs and through a 2½' high door, Michael and I had to knock it over to get it through. This also means that I had to rearrange our office, rendering both of our computers inaccessible. As for the water heater, it turns out that the drain on the water heater was corroded. When we knocked the heavy thing over, all the water started coming out. That was fine; we have a sump pump for the water, and it needed to be drained to be light enough for us to move it, but water was pouring out faster than it could be pumped. Water made it onto the carpet (awesome!), but it was stemmed when I used two of Alesha's good towels to push the water back.

Michael and I went to Home Depot to pick up our materials. Our old water heater was a Montgomery Ward model. You may notice I don't have a hyperlink to Montgomery Ward. It doesn't exists anymore! It hasn't for years! Who knows how old this heater was? We found out that the smallest water heater available was 50". No problem; we picked up a water heater, some soldering equipment for the pipes, a wrench or two, and headed out the door.

We realized problem #1 when we got home: the plumbing. As you can see in the picture, the hot and cold water pipes were directly above the old water heater, which was 7" shorter than our new one. If we had to move the pipes, we would have had to shut water off for the entire house! Fortunately, the heater just barely fit underneath the existing pipes, so we could cut the pipes in the appropriate places and get on with the soldering

Well, Michael and I couldn't figure out how to light the blowtorch we bought properly, so we experimented lighting it off of the gas stove upstairs.

You can go back and read that sentence a couple of times if you want, just to show you that Alesha's fears weren't entirely unfounded.

After much fanfare and muttering, we soldered the straight joint on. (I almost have feeling back in the thumb and index finger of my right hand where I decided to pick up a freshly soldered copper pipe.) You may or may not see the problem with the picture on the left; I know I didn't at first. The pipe coming out of the wall is basically at the same level as the pipe coming up from the water heater. We had 24" flexible pipes to connect the heater to the pipe in the wall. There is no amount of flexibility that would allow for these two to connect. A new strategy was needed.

I had to be at work at 1:00, so Michael and I agreed to meet at 8:00 the next morning and figure out what to do. This is when I realized that both pipes--the pipes leading to and going from the water heater-- were dripping water. The "in" pipe was leaking because the hot-water valve was not sealing properly, and the "out" pipe, because cold water was back-filling the pipe from upstairs. I let both drip onto the floor, confident our water problems would soon be over.

On Saturday, I was scheduled to work from 11-7. Michael was over early, and we went to Home Depot to get more parts. We decided to solder an elbow joint going up, which would allow our flexible pipes to attach properly.

This is about as far as we got all day. Deciding to solder pipes is easy. Actual soldering is hard.

Michael made many valiant attempts to solder everything properly, but every time we turned the water on, something leaked. We learned that if there is any water in the pipes, you can heat them all you want, but the water/steam is going to absorb the heat. You can't get the pipes hot enough to solder if there is water in them. Keep in mind, we were soldering the "out" pipe with an elbow going up that was at the same time backfilling with cold water. Before we went to solder the pipes, we had to bend the pipe downward to get the water out, then bend it upward to get our work done before the water came back. It was slow going. At one point, I decided to speed up the process by siphoning water out of the freshly-heated pipe. I'm probably the only person you know who has burned the entire inside of their mouth on a water heater.

By 10:00, we had actually run out of solder! I called work to let them know I would be in an hour late.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I went next door to see if my neighbor Mark was home. He was, so I gave him minute to wake up before he came over to tackle the soldering. Mark works for a cable company, and he has obviously done this sort of thing before. He soldered the two pipes for us and headed out.

A couple minutes later, we heard a dreadful sound: leaking water. We checked our pipes; nothing was wrong. We hadn't even turned the water on! Well, do remember all that jiggling we did with the "out" pipe? It was enough to free the pipe from the T-joint it was resting in. And guess where the T-joint was? Behind the air conditioner. We couldn't even see the leak, much less touch or fix it. So what did I do? I went to the laundry room and and busted a hole in the wall. I didn't have time to fool with it (you know, work and all), so Michael stayed behind to take a look at it. We turned the hot water in the bathtub on to relieve the pressure in the pipe and stop the back-flow. Michael used some joint compound to keep the pipe together, and agreed to let it cure and come back later that night to finish the installation.

At this point, Alesha is getting a fed up with the whole process. I can totally understand; I kept telling her that we'd be wrapping it up today, only to tell her that evening that we'd finish it in the morning. (This happened several days.) The office is nearly inaccessible, the carpet is getting grungy from foot traffic and water, the dog is going nuts with all the strange people coming and going and his change in schedule, we can't do laundry, and the dishes are piling up. She can't even walk in a straight line to the bedroom, with all the fans and garbage bags we have laying out. But she was understanding and indulging, and I'm glad I didn't have to charge her for physical spousal abuse. We were able to shower at Michael & Aimee's house that evening.

When Michael and I got back that night, we agreed to just turn on the water. Just like the water lines, we had used Teflon Tape to seal the gas lines. (No, the gas was not on at this point!) Apparently, this is a no-no. We bought the correct stuff at Home Depot, just before it closed at 9:00. Instead of fooling with the gas, we decided we were happy turning on the water. We turned it on and didn't see any leaks. Michael left, when Alesha realized she had to go to Woodbury to see a cat she was taking care of. After our stressful couple of days, I decided to go with her.

Out of all of the moves I have made in my life, this one will never be seen as brilliant, or even slightly shiny, in any light. The "in" pipe held brilliantly. The "out" pipe, however, didn't quite seal. When we returned after half an hour, there was water all over the floor, the walls, the water heater, and even some on the carpet. I turned off the hot water, lamenting to Alesha that I wished I knew how to turn off all the water in the house. I turns out that the shut-off value is right there in the utility room. If I had asked her earlier, I would have known. At any rate, we shut off the water, set up fans to dry everything off, and went to bed.

On Sunday, we went to Michael & Aimee's to shower. Stephanie went with us to the early Genesis service, where Michael actually played. I haven't seen him play for awhile, and it was good to see him get down on the bass. We had already planned to go to Waconia for the evening, and we decided to stick with the plan. We hadn't seen Tom & Scher in awhile, and they wanted to celebrate our birthdays with us. But we took our laundry with us.

We got back home on Monday morning. I ran to Home Depot (quickly becoming a much more familiar store than I was entirely comfortable with) to get new parts for soldering. I got some of those pre-soldered copper pipes, applied flux, and quickly soldered them together. I had Alesha turn on the water slowly... And the T-joint failed. I went back to Home Depot (thank goodness it's only 3 miles away!), where they told me the joint would have to be resoldered.

Do you see how close this pipe is to the wall? It's hard to make out, but do you see the PVC pipe on the right of the hole? They recommended a fireproof fiber for soldering.

At this point, I think you get the idea. I made 3 more Home Depot trips and about 6 more hours trying to fix this on Monday, but without success.

At this point, I was really frustrated. I had a frustrated wife, no hot water, limited cold water, a busted water heater, and 4 days of work with nothing to show but a mess. I really wanted to do this, and I really wanted to do this right. This was my first real challenge as a homeowner, and I was blowing it. How hard was it to hook up a stupid water heater anyway? It may sound cliché or overblown or whiny, but I felt inadequate as a man. I called it quits at 6:00 and called our contractor guy again to see if his schedule was open.

Our contractor guy came in the next morning. Not only did he fix the T-joint, he fixed the "out" pipe that I thought I had fixed. We both agreed that I should not pursue a career as a plumber.

In the end, it took 5 days and $603.10 to fix the water heater, including parts and labor. (Actually, I still have to buy a relief valve pipe to come up to code...) You may be asking what I got out of this experience.

• Tools! I have a pipe wrench, blowtorch, flux, pegboard for starters.
• Confidence! Even though I screwed a lot of things up, I can guarantee that I won't make those mistakes again. I know how to properly light a blowtorch, solder pipes, and turn on and off the water and gas in my house.
• Discernment! Even though it was out of frustration, I'm glad I stopped when I did and called our contractor guy. Who knows what I would have messed up otherwise?
  
• Appreciation! My brother really went out of his way to help me out with the water heater, from start to finish, and for that I'm grateful. My neighbor Mark really got us through a tough spot. And our contractor guy really did a good job and charged a very reasonable rate.

I hope that this post doesn't scare you from doing your own project at home. On the contrary, I hope you are inspired to take on a project you don't know how to do. Just use the friends and resources you have and block out a lot of time. We have hot water. Our house is clean. Our carpets are mold-free. I'm frankly one of the worst handy-men I can think of. But you know what? I'm getting better.