No Hot Water.

Crap. Looks like our water heater has sprung an irreparable leak, which means there is an expensive repair in our future. On the good side, the shutoff valve, which is directly above the heater, has been corroded since we moved in, and whose handle snapped off in my hand when I tried to close it, will get replaced too.

Update 2.23.09: Water is back, and life may resume as normal. We got a new AO Smith 50 gallon unit installed with an expansion tank and a new shutoff valve, as well as a gas shutoff (which was never there). Expensive, yes. I did peep out tankless systems, but the entry models at the H-D topped $1K to start, and I’d guess the pro-grade models would be an extra $200 or so before installation.

The funny part of the story is that I got home from a 5-hour Scout adventure Saturday afternoon and decided I’d put some extra time in on the basement while I was still in work clothes. I hadn’t been downstairs more than ten minutes when I noticed the first trickle of water from the heater, which grew into a pool an hour later. If it had been midnight, or a day when Jen didn’t make it downstairs, the whole basement could have been awash and we wouldn’t have known until the dryer floated away.

Yikes – can you do the install yourself?

If it were electric, and I could get a good pro-level water heater, I’d do it myself. But this is gas-fired, and I don’t fool with gas.

Surprisingly, I found that gas-fired ones are less expensive than good Energy Star electric ones. When mine went toes-up I considered switching (to LP, as there’s no LNG in Aurora) because the purchase price was so much lower. An efficient electric one is cheaper to operate, though, at least here, so it wasn’t worth switching even with the price break (and tank installation and gas line installation yada yada yada).

So that was nearly useless information, really, wasn’t it?

It’s cheaper for an Energy Star rated gas-fired unit here. Plus, I’d have to remove the gas lines and run a new power line to it, which makes installation more expensive.

The old one dated back to 1985, so this house got its money’s worth out of it, I figure.

How about a tankless? They were still prohibitively spendy the last time I checked, but maybe they’ve come down enough to make sense.

yes, but if the dryer had floated away, would you have been heartbroken? (I mean, outside of the extra expense?)