Last December (2021) and January, we noticed that we weren't getting quite as much hot water from our water heater (I hate it when people call it a "hot water heater"... you don't need to heat hot water). Not wanting to replace the whole unit (which was made in 2014, so it shouldn't require that anyway) I wondered if simply replacing the elements would do the trick. So I went to Home Depot, bought two replacement elements and an element wrench. After watching one and a half YouTube videos, I got to work. This was the Sunday night before we played Alabama in Indianapolis.
It wound up being quite the pain in the ass. I didn't have a good garden hose to drain the tank (we have one of those expanding water hoses, but there just wasn't enough pressure from tank to push water through that hose with any efficiency), so that added quite a bit of time and mess and I wound up draining water into pans and pots as that was actually faster. Then one of the element heads was almost rounded off and took quick quite a bit of work (and even more cussing) to get loose. The bottom element is a real pain too, being so low... just a lot of kneeling and squatting. Just one thing after another with that project. But, I got it done and was so happy to have hot water again an hour later. I was also quite sore the next day, that was a good low body workout. I was still feeling it in my ass and thighs until that fourth beer during the game, which which we obviously won.
So guess what I did last night. Got a better garden hose this time. And also replaced the top thermostat for good measure. That's also a pain in the ass, albeit for different reasons. I told my wife this morning that I'm not doing any more work on that damn water heater. No way I mess with that last night if we weren't playing in the national title game this year, and I hadn't done the same thing the night before last year.
It wound up being quite the pain in the ass. I didn't have a good garden hose to drain the tank (we have one of those expanding water hoses, but there just wasn't enough pressure from tank to push water through that hose with any efficiency), so that added quite a bit of time and mess and I wound up draining water into pans and pots as that was actually faster. Then one of the element heads was almost rounded off and took quick quite a bit of work (and even more cussing) to get loose. The bottom element is a real pain too, being so low... just a lot of kneeling and squatting. Just one thing after another with that project. But, I got it done and was so happy to have hot water again an hour later. I was also quite sore the next day, that was a good low body workout. I was still feeling it in my ass and thighs until that fourth beer during the game, which which we obviously won.
So guess what I did last night. Got a better garden hose this time. And also replaced the top thermostat for good measure. That's also a pain in the ass, albeit for different reasons. I told my wife this morning that I'm not doing any more work on that damn water heater. No way I mess with that last night if we weren't playing in the national title game this year, and I hadn't done the same thing the night before last year.
