Hot Water Detour

After working hard to get the master bedroom floor painted, I wanted nothing other than a nice hot shower, but all I could get out of the shower head was a tepid stream.  Great. What now?

Our ancient electric hot water heater was acting up so I headed to the cellar armed with a screwdriver and a multi-tester.  Most likely one of the elements had burned out.

First, a little background on our vintage appliance.  The house came with this old Sepco hot water heater.  It was part of an arrangement that the prior owner had with one of the local power companies, Central Vermont Power.  The homeowner pays a monthly fee for "hot water service" which includes a lease on the tank, maintenance thereof, and the electricity to heat the water.  This frees the homeowner from having to maintain or replace their hot water tank and also let's them monitor their hot water usage separate from the rest of their electric bill.

I'm not one to go for these deals.  The power company that was providing the hot water was a different one than that supplying the electricity to my house, so essentially I'd be paying a middleman for something that I was quite capable of managing myself.  And being the handyman, it would be anathema to actually allow somebody else to maintain a household appliance for me.  I mean, really, why would I want to spend my weekend golfing or playing whiffle ball with my kid when I could be in the cellar fixing the hot water tank!

When I didn't sign up for the service, Central Vermont Power reminded me that the hot water tank belonged to them.  I told them, fine, come and get it.  They called back a few days later and asked me if I wanted to keep it anyway.  Frankly, I was expecting this.  The tank is big and heavy (concrete lined) and they had to cut a hole in the floor to get it into the cellar however many years ago they installed it. They probably checked their records and realized that removing the tank was going to be an expensive trash removal operation.

Now I had to decide, let them come and take this old tank off my hands and buy a new one, or keep this and save myself, at least temporarily, the task of having to dispose it.  I decided to keep it.

So now comes the first Sepco hiccup. I determined that it was a burned out element after all and proceeded to replace it. The basic way to do this is:

1. Shut off the power to the tank, disconnect the leads to the element, and test for connectivity.  If the element shows not connectivity, it's burned out.  (On my tank, you can actually listen closely and hear the elements heating the water, using an ohmmeter is more to the point though.)
2. Drain the tank by attaching a garden hose to the drain spigot, turn off the cold water inlet valve, open the drain spigot, and open the hot water taps on the faucets in the house to allow air in as the water drains out. (Oh yeah, and you'll need a place for all that water to go to.)
3. With the tank empty, remove the burned out element, slide the new one in, with a new gasket, and hook up the leads.
4. Fill the tank up by leaving the taps open in the house, close the drain spigot and open the cold water inlet.
5. Turn the power back on after you know the tank is filled by the presence of water coming from the hot water taps.

So those are the basics, but when you have a tank that may very well be as old as your father, you might run into the following:

• Rusty bolts that hold the element in place. You break these and your Saturday morning chore just turned into a weekend hell.
• The amount of sediment in the tank (a calcium carbonate and sand mix that very closely resembles vomit) is so much as to have completely immersed the bottom element. You have to scoop and flush it out as best you can.
• Old style element. You'll drive to two or more building/plumbing supply centers before you find the right one or an adapter to make a new one fit. 
• The updated old-style element requires some funky modification to the bracket that holds the thermostat in place.

My little detour from painting the upstairs to getting us back to having hot showers took a little longer, and had more surprises than I hoped.  But what old house task doesn't take 50 - 100% longer than expected...

handyman