[MPR]

Well, I need to get back over to the shop and make me a short drain hose to empty the hot water heater, which has sprung a leak.

It's a good thing that this town is so quiet because I kept hearing what sounded like a sprinkler going off every 20 seconds early this morning. I finally went outside and noticed that the sump pump drain was squirting. I was just down in the basement checking the softener salt a last week so it hasn't been leaking for long.

I'm glad we had the guy put a sump hole in what was to become the plumbing room when he poured the basement. The water does eventually meander into the sump but it would have nice to have a bit more of a slope. Fortunately, the basement walls' floor plates contain most of the water to the one room. There was still quite a bit to vacuum up though.

If I was 10 years younger I'd just install a new hot water heater myself. I installed enough of them back when I was doing apartment maintenance. That was when I was pushing 40 though, not pushing 70. Just hauling that shop vac down into the basement and sucking up and dumping several 10-gallon buckets of water has tuckered me out.

I'll have to call the local plumber to come over and install a new one. He's a "kid" in his 40s. Dad knew his dad real well and would always call him when there was extra plumbing that needed done. Dad could plumb too but, like me, he eventually got too old to want to do it anymore.

Fortunately, I've got another hot water heater and shower over in the shop that I can use in the meantime. I'm glad I went over to the shop too as my air compressor's motor was starting to really squeal. I guess that's another thing I need to fix or replace this spring. I've got a pancake compressor that I can use to air up tires and run nail guns though so it's not exactly a pressing issue.

 

[Corday]

You might want to look at the instant hot water option rather than a new tank. My Electric Co-OP company offers a policy for $1.00 a month included in the bill and they'll repair or replace the tank for free (P&L).

 

[MPR]

That would be something I'd look into if I lived in a city but this little town of 400 is barely capable of keeping a well running to pump water into the water tower and wouldn't have such a service. I've actually never seen an on-demand hot water system. I suppose that one could be installed if I really wanted one though.

Well, got the water heater drained and the leak stopped for now. The cold-water valve to the heater didn't shut off so I had to shut the entire house's water off. Fortunately, I've got a shop with a bathroom and shower so it's not a dire emergency.

 

[SABL]

You learn what you can do or not not do as you age. Not much that I do these days....

I had a water heater replaced a few years ago.....$$$ The plumber said 'on demand' heaters don't work well in this area due to the cold weather....ground temps keep the water icy cold in the winter.

 

[MPR]

I had a water heater replaced a few years ago... The plumber said 'on demand' heaters don't work well in this area... ground temps keep the water icy cold.

Our water is pretty cold throughout the year as it's pumped up from deep wells. On the "normal" heater setting, I generally turn the hot water on full blast and just crack the cold water a bit to bring it down to a tolerable temperature. I usually keep the shop water heater on the "vacation" setting just to have warm water to wash my hands. However I cranked it up today. I'm back from taking a hot shower in a 35 °F shop bathroom. You should have seen the steam! Now, I need to go back downstairs and check on the water situation.

 

[johnwill]

My water heater is in a pan with a drain, so if it springs a leak, no flood, just have to order a new water heater.

 

[MPR]

My water heater is in a pan with a drain, so if it springs a leak, no flood, just have to order a new water heater.

One city I lived in had a code that required pans under the water heaters with outlets directed to the outside of the apartments. I think that was a good idea. It's a bit harder to do it in a basement though as I'd have to route a hose to the sump, which would be in the way. We've only had two hot water heater leaks in 40 years too.

 

[johnwill]

My basement has a drain channel, it's a floating basement. The dehumidifiers, the furnace humidifier, and the water heater pan all drain into that if needed. The sump eventually sees all this water and deals with it.

 

[jonnyb]

I wanted to drain my hot water heater last year and opened the bottom faucet and nothing came out. A few years back I could do this. I guess there may be a lot of sediment in the bottom of the tank because I could even get a drip out of the lower faucet. May be time for me to look into another water heater. It does work well though.

 

[oscer1]

I wanted to drain my hot water heater last year and opened the bottom faucet and nothing came out. A few years back I could do this. I guess there may be a lot of sediment in the bottom of the tank because I could even get a drip out of the lower faucet. May be time for me to look into another water heater. It does work well though.

you did not say if you opened the blow off valve to let air in when you opened the drain port. you have to open the blow off valve to get air in to drain it.

 

[johnwill]

In my previous house we had a well. We had a LOT of sediment buildup in the HW heater. I replaced the HW heater twice over 30 years, and I'm sure it was due again. I also had each of them cleaned out several times by draining down, removing the lower element, and sucking out all the sediment. They got cleaned about every three-four years, and when I opened them up, there was a mountain of sediment that sometimes reached the lower element!

 

[MPR]

Well, after a weekend of hauling water from the shop hydrant in 5-gallon bucket to flush the toilet with I'm now kicking myself. When I turned off the inflow valve to the water heater it still filled so I thought that the ball valve was faulty and shut off the house water. Today I found out that I had actually turned off the outflow valve. It was an honest mistake on my part though because the inflow valve had a line coming off of it going to the whole-house humidifier. When we originally plumbed the house we had that line coming off the hot water outflow so that the humidifier wouldn't lime up so bad. I guess when they installed a new water heater six years ago they changed it around.

I looked up the serial number on the water heater and found that it was still under warranty. That's going to save me $900. I've known the local plumber for twenty years and he has always been more than reasonable with his rates so the bill shouldn't be much more than the price of a video card.

Of course, when you start working on one thing then you find you need to work on other things too. My shop vacuum was really whining at me as I sucked up the water so I had to take it apart and oil it. Then I noticed that a trailer tire was flat. I went over to the shop to get my impact wrench and found my air compressor was screeching as well. I'll have to take it apart shortly and look at the bearings. Fortunately, I have a pancake air compressor that I can use in the meantime.

I worked for a half-hour trying to break the bead of that stupid trailer tire with no success so I drove twenty miles to the tire shop and had them fix it for 25 bucks. A farmer was in there getting new tires for his pickup. They quoted him a price of $395 each. When did tires get so expensive? We got to talking about the baby ducks and chickens for sale at the farm store. He said that his wife had a flock of about a hundred chickens and had a pretty good meat-chicken selling business going. He said that he had just bought six ducks too because the grandkids though Mee-Maw should have some ducks. He said that those girls have Mee-Maw wrapped around their little fingers.

 

[MPR]

In my previous house we had a well. We had a LOT of sediment buildup in the HW heater.

The Portland, Oregon Metro doesn't filter their water because it comes from a mountain reservoir that is off-limits to public use. Apparently the water is excellent for making beer, which is one reason why why there are so many microbrewerys in the area. It really fills up a water heater with sediment though. When I was living there I had to drain my water heater every three months.

 

[johnwill]

Well, no way I'd even visit Portland now, I probably wouldn't survive the trip!

 

[MPR]

Well, no way I'd even visit Portland now, I probably wouldn't survive the trip!

Portland was a great place in the 80s and 90s. However, it got too "woke" and the politicians let the drug addicts and other criminals run rampant. The last year I was there the Post Office stopped mail delivery to our apartments because the boxes were being destroyed each night by the drug addicts that lived under the bridge. And this was in a nice suburb twenty miles from the city proper.

The last straw for me was when I stopped at noon to run into a shopping center to pick up a new umbrella. I came back in ten minutes to find my pickup's windows broken out, the ignition pulled, and everything I had in the truck gone. Fortunately for me, my truck was at the end of the line of cars they hit. Five others were gone, only broken glass where they had been. This was right outside the main entrance too. The cop who finally showed up after an hour was a real jerk and seemed like he was annoyed at having to even file the report. I had a class to teach at 4 PM and I barely made it because the cop spent an hour yelling at his girlfriend over the phone.

It's an amazingly beautiful and diverse area though. There are not many other places where you can go snow skiing on a mountain in the morning and scuba diving in an ocean in the afternoon. Oh yeah, there was a guy in my apartment complex who was run through with a sword by his jealous boyfriend too but that was more interesting than annoying. I've worked a lot of stabbings but that's the only time I can recall seeing a guy run through by a sword. I and an off-duty firefighter treated him until the paramedics took over. Actually, the ambulance arrived quickly but then the paramedics just sat in it because their union wouldn't let them come in without a police escort.

Unions are another reason I left the area. I'd heard stories of union carpenters literally dropping their hammers the second the break whistle sounded and though they were just a joke. I then shingled a roof at a fish hatchery with some of the union workers there. At 10:30 they would literally drop their tools and climb down off the roof to walk a half mile to the main building for their thirty-minute break then walk a half mile back, only to then break for lunch. They did about three hours of actual work a day. I wasn't union so I just stayed until I got the job done. The manager at the hatchery called me a "go-getter" and was disappointed when I left to teach instead. Even if you aren't union out there you have to pay them, however, if you want to work. It's a total scam.

This was Portland then:

This is Portland now:

 

[johnwill]

My mother lived in St. Helens until the the early 2000's, I was in Portland many times from the 1980's until she was gone, I'm sure I wouldn't recognize the place now!

 

[MPR]

My mother lived in St. Helens until the the early 2000's, I was in Portland many times from the 1980's until she was gone, I'm sure I wouldn't recognize the place now!

I've been through St Helens a bunch of times while taking Route 30 out to the coast. It's far away from Portland proper to probably still be a nice little city. Portland used to be one of my favorite places to visit. I had a cousin who lived there and I drove out there a couple dozen times before I eventually moved to the area. When I first went out there I was impressed that little kids still were riding their bikes to school.

It's really too bad what their elected officials have let happen to the place. There are drug addict encampments under every bridge and overpass now. And while violent crime still isn't as bad as places like St. Louis and Chicago, property crime has become rampant due to the lack of criminal prosecution. Portland violent crime is 21.7. (The US average is 22.7) · Portland property crime is 72.3. (The US average is 35.4).

The entire eastern half of the state has voted to secede and join Idaho. Of course this won't happen but it shows how divided the area is and how upset people are. People are still pretty friendly out in Oregon for the most part though. In fact, I've traveled extensively throughout all of the lower 48 states and found people to be generally friendly everywhere, with the exception of maybe southern California.