Monday, November 11, 2002

What a Drip!

My weekend was a bit of a fiasco from Day -2 (that's Thursday). It seems the sun roof in our Accord wasn't closed all the way so the inside of the car is now soaked. I was able to drive it to work this morning without getting soaked myself by putting a big sheet of plastic over the seat. Where did I find a big sheet of plastic? Funny you should ask... I got it from the new water heater I was forced to buy yesterday to replace ours... learned some interesting things about water heaters and plumbing, though!

For instance, I took a garden hose and hooked it to the old heater's bib and opened the valve. After a few minutes there wasn't any water coming out of the hose, so I figured it was empty. John and I cut the supply pipes (and, yes, we'd turned the water off already), disconnected the gas and started dragging the thing out. It was really rather heavy. When we were getting it out the door we wound up lying it down on it's side for a moment, only to have lots of very hot water come spilling out the supply pipe onto my foot. Hmm... and now it's blistering the paint off the back porch. OK, let's move it over a little more. Guesses on how long a 30 or 40 gallon water heater ACTUALLY takes to empty? No, not "a few" minutes, but more like 40 or more!