My previous post has been fulfilled. We had the water heater installed Saturday morning (April 14, 2007) and my –it’s been a long time since we’ve had HOT water … we just have been Reverse-Frogs (you know the idea about frogs, put them in a pot of cold water, and slowly heat the water up and he’ll sit there and get cooked eventually.) Fortunately, being human and not some actual frog species, we finally did realize that our water just wasn’t as hot as it once was, that something was amiss in how much hot water we had, that it ran out really fast, but not until we got that brand spanking new water heater installed and working did we realize just how horridly we’ve lived for how long, we aren’t sure how long.
One can turn on the hot water tap now and must be careful to mix in some cold water to avoid that “way too hot” feeling. Oh the joy! My poor nearly-11-year-old was washing his hands yesterday afternoon in the bathroom as I was walking past, down the hall to the master bedroom, and I heard him yell “OWWWWW!” –lesson in progress. I told him about the cold water, how useful it is to mix with the hot to achieve the desire temperature. He had obviously grown reverse-froggy along with his parents.
So now we can have baths and showers, wash dishes by hand or in the machine, and wash clothing on Sanitary (Very Hot, very long setting) or the regular Hot settings, mix and match some of those things and have enough hot water to do them without “running out” of satisying or needful hot water too soon. Our water heater is a 50-gallon-er so it’s even better in that respect, more capacity for hot water than we had before, and hotter water and more hotter water overall compared with that old-40-gallon-er that was acting so very geriatric at 9-years+ of age (went into service in November 1997.) Our dear children can each have a bath, one after the other, absolutely now, and the dishwasher can run simulaneously. That’s exciting. 🙂
Read up on water heaters (online) and you’ll find out that water heaters don’t have a long life expectancy. Like so many other things in our world today, the axiom, “They don’t make ’em like they used to” applies here. They just don’t last like old ones did. They are more “energy efficient” and such, but just can’t live out a long life of decent service.
Also, our water heater now looks beefier, not just the fact that it’s a fatter one than the previous, but codes have changed since our house was built, and so we have an expansion tank above the water heater and copper pipes coming out of the water heater for several inches before joining into the PVC of the house system.