What a moron… no really, I feel pretty stupid over this one. My water heater went out last week… it just wouldn’t heat water no matter what I did. I had long since fell into a deep hate relationship with this water heater as it has never worked correctly since I bought the thing a couple years earlier. When you turn the thing up hot enough so that you can take a hot shower – the pressure valve kicks in and it starts dumping water all over my garage.

Most of the year, this is fine… heck, in South Texas there is usually enough hot water resting in the pipes to take a hot shower. The only time it becomes an issue is when the temperature drops under 40 or so. At those times, all I get is ice cold water unless I go turn the temp up on the unit. I wait about five minutes, take my shower, and then go turn the temp down before it starts overflowing all over the garage. The problem is that I would often forget to turn it back down and head out for the day – only to return later to a stream of water running down my driveway and the street.

When it finally gave up the ghost and stopped heating altogether, I figured what the heck, I hate this one anyway – I will go get a new one. Before I could get one, I started feeling guilty about my wastefulness – afterall, it has a 9 yr warranty – surely, it would be a waste just to buy a new one. I decided to research the warranty… in the meantime, I have a 24hr Fitness a mile away and a membership.

It got me out from behind my desk and into the gym so I was in no hurry to rush out and get a new water heater. It was only today after finding out that I lack the paperwork to make a warranty claim that I was struck FINALLY by a flash of the obvious. Sure enough, the pilot light had simply blown out. I lit the pilot and decided to blog this while waiting for the water to heat enough for my first home shower in several days.

MORAL: It pays to wait sometimes… or in this case – saves ($238 water heater + $255 installation = over $500 with tax)