The water heater died!
7 thoughts on “a-a-a-a-a-n-d…Just to Put the Frosting on the Cake…”
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ―Edmund Burke
The water heater died!
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Well, s%#t! Hopefully not in a grand, spectacular way where you now have a stream running through your garage or house.
No. The 11-year-old heater seems to be dead. There’s no hot water.
Hmmmm….could be just an element if it’s electric. Might be time to give the Geo Spring a try…. have one and it has performed well.
It’s a gas heater. Since it’s not leaking, I do hope it can be repaired, but it’s pretty old. The days when water heaters lasted 15 or 20 years are long gone — I’m told 10 years is the typical life expectancy.
Have you seen the Amazon reviews for the GeoSpring? Twenty-three one-stars to ten five-stars! And the one-star folks have had some pretty annoying experiences. Looks like Samsung washer redux…only the Samsung’s problem isn’t that it keeps breaking down — it just doesn’t wash clothes.
The miracles of modern technology…
Gas???….one would think a water heater would last longer than 11 years…I’ve got socks older than that! As for the Geo Spring….I have a “red one” which as I understand it is the “good one” as it was the next generation and made in the USA. The first generation and gray ones had A LOT of issues…basically that they were made in China and were broke before they arrived….ie…. JUNK. The new ones (red) were built here (in the US) with the new tech and IMHO this is quite the machine to behold….and comes with a 10 year warranty….It has performed better than the paperwork from GE predicted. Never out of hot water and electric bill “fell off the table”.
It works especially well for me because the area the heater is located is heated by a wood stove. So in Winter the air that the water heater is using to absorb heat from and heat our water is actually “wood heat”. The collected water from the condensation is used to water plants. And during the Summer the basement is “cooled” by the unit and de-humidified as it absorbs the heat from Summer. It’s like having AC in the basement …. crazy.
Wonder what a new water heater is going to cost? Hopefully it’s a thermo-coupling or control…but like you said ….11 years old…worth putting money in? I swear ….it looks like your never gonna get “the chariot” replaced….
My , that is interesting. I noticed they were talking back & forth about “red tops” and “gray tops” but didn’t grasp the significance.
That is SO awesome that it cut the electric bill that much! Well done. The whole heat pump concept has much to recommend it. My HVAC unit is a heat pump, and, as much as I bellyache about the summer power bills, I do have to say this house’s bills are a great deal lower than M’hijito’s (whose house is 23% smaller than mine) and than some of my friends’.
Natural gas is very cheap here in Arizona. Of course, I don’t have a whole family showering and carrying on, but in fact my gas bill is never higher than about $35, and that’s in a month of cold days in Hell.
Well, we’ll see what the plumber says. I hope he can fix it, but it may not be worth the cost. This is my fault because I’ve never drained it to help beat back the sediment, mostly because I don’t know how and because I’m fundamentally scared of the gas and don’t want to fiddle with the controls.
Hm. Okay, so here’s the idea: we turn the Samsung washer into a boiler. It’s plumbed for water, so we divert the cold water into the Sumsung, under which be build a charcoal fire that we keep glowing along all the time. Thus: Turn on faucet in shower…water flows from attic pipes (yeah. don’t ask.) down through the washer, where it is heated over the fire, and then is delivered back up through the piping into the house, and into the shower! Presto-changeo!
You could, in theory, put some shampoo into the Samsung, thereby delivering soapy water to the shower so that you would never have to buy another lifetime supply of Dove from Costco again.
Heh. Life in the 21st century…
With ya on the gas. I have a lot of “respect” for natural gas anything. I installed a gas water heater last year at my oldest rental…it went well but I’m always apprehensive. In this neck of the woods a new one goes for around $350-$400.
The GEO Spring is an interesting story. The federal government went in with GE to come up with this innovation and spent a ton of cash. These things first came out for $1600-$2K and promptly disappointed everyone by failing. So GE brought production stateside….I think in St Louis but wouldn’t swear to it. To help set the US ones apart they changed the color to red….and reduced the price…..and then my utility offered a healthy rebate ….and GE offered a substantial rebate as well…and my CC offered 5% back….and I made the move.
I installed and plumbed this thing myself and read the book cover to cover…it has been wonderful. The thing to remember ….you can not lay these heaters on their side….it harms the heat pump mechs and screws up the electronics. My thought is, this is where a lot of the problems come from….And for the record I haven’t seen a $35 gas bill since the Carter Administration….