Aug. 30th, 2004

omahas: (Default)
Water heater: 3
Us: 2

We got the correct connector, hooked it up, got everything together turned the water on slowly, opened up the hot water everywhere in the house slowly...and the heater leaked. I kid you not.

The leaking is occurring in the threads where the connectors for the piping that brings the water into and out of the system, and the T&P valve, connect to the heater itself. So it's not something that we hooked on. We turned the water off, and by this time Elf is just finished with his life. He's not going to have a hot shower before going to bed. I kid you not, he was actually looking at taking today off rather than take a cold shower! But he couldn't get out of it after Kouryou-chan herself took one (she actually told me she wanted to take one, after I told her that *if* she wanted one tonight, that was the way she would have to take it, or she'd have to wait till tomorrow...she decided she didn't want to wait.)

This morning I called up the GE water heater number and told them the problem. They said it sounded like the threads simply needed more plumbers putty. They faxed paperwork off to a contractor, who I then called to get this going forward as soon as possible. I am now waiting for the contractor to come by sometime between 11 and 1 my time.

Yeah, we'd have hot water sooner if we'd hired a plumber from the start. And we'd be out about $400 more. There's a lot I can do with $400. I can only take a bath with one day's more of hot water. ::grin::
omahas: (Default)
I so thought I had our new water heater beat. Really, I did. I looked that water heater in the...er...eye and said, "I'm calling in the heavy duty players now, buster." I called GE this morning and said, "WTF, over?" They faxed info to Washington Energy Services who were the contractor of choice. I chose to call them within about a half hour and get them out here asap. They said sometime between 11 am and 1 pm.

So 1 pm rolls around, and no contractor. I called up only to find that the guy who was supposed to show up is still wrestling with a 100 gallon commercial tank in a retirement park and was still going at it. "Maybe an hour, could be two." Lovely, I thought. Well, he shows up about 2:30, which was fine because it gave Kouryou-chan and I enough time to get to the store and grocery shop today (we took the bike and the half-bike attachment...she had great fun, I had great exercise ;). I showed him the water heater, then proceeded to make Kouryou-chan some lunch.

Now, last night I had told Elf that I would be calling the manufacturer and having them send out a technician to look at it. Elf was convinced...convinced....that they would just blame the whole thing on us and we'd have to pay for a whole lot and they'd just install the whole thing and blahblahblahblahblah. Frankly I think that Elf has lost his rights to his genitals over the past 72 hours; truly he has been the proverbial 1950's housewife the entire time and it has driven me crazy.

"We can't solder that so close to the wall...we'll burn the house down."

"We're never going to get any hot water doing this ourselves...we might as well just go call a plumber and get him to install it." (this was said *after* we had done all the work yesterday evening and had found the leaking in the part that had come from the manufacturer...in essence, we'd call a plumber to fix what the manufacturer had to fix, then pay him to turn the screws back on, which we could just as easily do ourselves.)

"We might as well wait for a week or two to take the old water heater to the transfer station...we'll have to wait in long lines anyway." "Honey, that's on the weekends, not the weekdays." "It will always be that way." "Have you ever been there on the weekdays?" "No, but it will be, I just know it!" (All I had to do was make one phone call to the transfer station to find out that because we are recycling it, we don't stand in line, we just drop it off immediately).

There was more, but you get the idea. It was amazing that whenever something went wrong, he jumped to the absolutely worst conclusion and felt like the end of the world was about to happen.

In any case, the guy finally shows up, he says that the threads were not threaded with plumbers putty properly from the manufacturer, fixes that, tests the pressure to make sure it was within correct limits (it was) and that was it. No cost to us, and I didn't realize that the water heater had filled up as fast as it does, but it was full in no time flat.

He left, I connected the electrical connections (they are child's play...red to red, black to black, hook green around green screw for ground) put the metal plate into place, and turned on the power to the water heater.

Forty-five minutes later, when I'm supposed to have hot water, I don't.

A half hour after I'm supposed to have hot water, I still don't.

I'd like to check and find out whether it's my connections under the electrical plate or the actual electrical wiring in the water heater itself, but I can't. That's because the gizmo we got for doing the testing is missing. And who was the last person to use it?

That's right. Elf. Sigh. And he doesn't know where it is either.

Actually, I'm sure that he's started to chew on it. It looks like a fat pen. Heh.

Seriously, I've come down on Elf here a bit, because he drove me absolutely bonkers the past few days, but I love him dearly, and there's no one who can turn a connector or screw like him. He's my rubber husband. ;)
omahas: (Default)
NO...HOT...WATER....LOSING....PATIENCE.....HULK OMAHA.....SMASH....STUPID.....WATER....HEATER!!!!!!

Well, that's what it feels like. Stupid machine. You'd think that when you get a machine like this, from a company that everyone says you can trust, (GE is just a trademark for this company) that you will get a good quality machine that works when you install it. But noooooo. That's not going to happen for us.

I finally found the stupid electricity detector...it was nudged between two games that Kouryou-chan was playing. I had quizzed her on where the thing was earlier, and she had said she hadn't played with it. Now I sat her down and said I wouldn't be angry with her if she did, I just needed to know if she did and where she had played with it. Bless her little (conniving) heart, she didn't even blink when she said yes she had played with it. So I searched through the Rec room till I found it.

Unfortunately, this was *after* the stupid manufacturer was closed, and after the contractor that they had sent us had filled up their orders for the evening. We won't see a technician till tomorrow morning. Fortunately, I talked to the same woman I had talked to earlier, and she promised to not only call me in the morning, but also to send out the same guy to look back over it.

And tonight it was my turn to take a cold shower. My that water is f*cking cold!

Profile

omahas: (Default)
omahas

January 2017

S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031    

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 22nd, 2025 04:16 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios