Best Of

Back in May I decided to finally replace our 80 gallon stone lined Vaughn electric water heater. It was over 20 years old but not leaking and may have lasted forever but it's an energy pig for two people. These Vaughn stone lined tank were very popular with the electric utilities installed them (including this one before we owned this place) for years. But our local utility gave up on that a few years back and said "you now own the tank."

Thanks a lot!!!

I knew it was going to be a PITA and wanted to get it done before it let go or I got any older. It probably would outlast me!

So, I bought a new 40 gallon and installed it back in May. The old heater with the cement lining is about 400# empty. I got it up on some 1" pipe for rollers and pushed it to the side where it sat and sat LOL

I stripped the plastic jacket off it and then all the 2" foam. Originally, I thought I would cut it with a grinder with a cutting disk and then break up the concrete. The stairs are very tight with a sharp turn at the top and bottom. No outside entrance to the cellar.

The cellar is semi-finished off so I hung plastic around the tank area and with safety goggles and a mask started cutting. It just made too much of a mess and the neighbors (we are in a condo) complained about the noise. I folded back part of the steel (1/8" thick) and tried busting the concrete and that was going to be tough. I also tried a Sawzall and bought a metal cutting blade for my Skill saw and that didn't work out well either

So, then I tried call a few junk guys to take it out. No one wanted anything to do with it. The one honest guy told me to cut it up he would have to charge me over $xxxx.xx to take it out.

Time for plan B

So today (while my girlfriend was gone for the day) was my time to strike.

I used a Come a Long and pulled it up the stairs which worked like a dream. Once I was all set up I had it upstairs in 10-15 min.

I used a 5/8" eye bolt with a rod coupling and a piece of rod with some nuts and washers a made a hole in the sheet rock wall.

Now you know why I waited till she was gone.

I put a 3' 2 x 6 on each side of the wall to sandwich the wall. No damage to the sheet rock at all except for the 1" hole I made which I patched.

So, the good news is I got it out of the celler!!

Bad news is it's sitting in the kitchen so I am still feeling the heat.

I got to wait to get my brother to give me a hand getting it out the door down 3 steps and onto my trailer.

But I let my Neice borrow the trailer and when I texted her today, she said it is sitting in her yard full of mulch and has a flat tire.

When I stretched out my come a long it was 3" short. So, I had a few xtra shackles I made up the distance with. Of course when I got up to the top step I ran out of cable and had to disconnect the shackles. I drilled a hole in the tank and used a piece of 1/4" wire rope and some clips up and back up through the HW outlet to hook on to the tank.

So the saga continues!!