You know when your having a bad day when;

leonz

Go back in time 10 days;

I wanted to have the propain dealer come by and raise my water heater off the floor by 6 inches for simple piece of mind and plumb in a 2 gallon hot water expansion tank on the water heater they installed over a decade ago that replacing the beautiful Bradford White 30 gallon water heater that they said was rusting.

We don't do plumbing, we won't do plumbing insert "pissed off here".

Fast forward 10 days and the 40 gallon propain water heater was gurgling while the induced draft fan on the top of the water heater while water was dripping condensing
on the PVC pipe flange connected to the Fasco fan housing and the floor was wet.

SO, I called the propain dealer and by the time the tech came by the water heater acted like the fan was gurgling water and the fan bearings were screaming and I shut it off.

The tech had to go on a no heat call and he said that he would be back this afternoon to replace it with a new water heater.

They wanted $XXXX.XX for the water heater and the installation or at 1/2 XXXX.XX least half up front.
SO I increased my debt by $XXXX.XX since the new owners would not would not bill me every month for it as I have been a customer since 1987.

WMno57

Is this a done deal? Electric resistance water heaters are the cheapest up front. More expensive to operate, but if someone is not a user of large quantities of hot water, it may be the better financial decision.

ratio

Sounds like you're in need of a new propane guy.

EBEBRATT-Ed

@leonz you ought to remove your pricing

pedmec

Maybe you should be happy. You could have had two bills. One last week for raising it and another today for replacing it. Now you get to have it raised while he is there replacing it.

EdTheHeaterMan

@leonz, you should know better... please remove the pricing from your post. It is in the website rules. ...you know, the rules that no one ever reads.

JakeCK

No need to beat a dead horse 🐎 on the price. But I must ask why propane? It is such an expansive fuel and is often more expensive or with in spitting distance of electric? 

Jamie Hall

The usual reason for going with LP or gas or oil over electric with water heaters is recovery time. Most electric water heaters have two 4.5 KW elements, only one of which is active at once -- and recovery time is abysmally long. Which is why they are so big.

leonz

Thanks Jamie, that is one of the three reasons I did not go back to electric (the third being it would have to be wired on a night rate timer again through the night rate meter, or (2) investing an oil fired water heater (3) never having enough hot water. Suburban propain let me run out of fuel oil 4 times prior to my switching over to a coal stoker boiler for heating this place.

leonz

I edited my comment and it has to be approved.

Erin Holohan Haskell

leonz said:

I edited my comment and it has to be approved.

Approved! 😊

JakeCK

Jamie Hall said:

The usual reason for going with LP or gas or oil over electric with water heaters is recovery time. Most electric water heaters have two 4.5 KW elements, only one of which is active at once -- and recovery time is abysmally long. Which is why they are so big.

Had an electric water heater growing up. Never had an issue with recovery then. And I have a hybrid electric now. Still no issue with a family of four. Of course we aren't filling giant soaker tubs either... There are also other ways to increase the amount of hot water available such as a drain water heat recovery hx.

leonz

My electric water heater was wired directly into my night rate meter connection lugs for nighttime 11:00PM E.S.T 7:00 AM operation only as the previous residents of this home were (*&^%^&*&^%$#@#$%^ snow birds and real estate speculators.

The lower element became coated and buried in colloidal clay from my new well water and as a result it became useless and inoperative and it was replaced with my first 30 gallon propain fired Bradford White water heater in 1988.

JakeCK

Well I hate to break it to you but if clay from your well water is affecting electric elements it is also affecting the HX of a fuel burning water heater as well. 

Also I don't know what propain is but it sounds horrible. 

leonz

I no longer have to deal with clay being in the well water so I know the new water heater is fine.

I have dealt with colloidal clay in my well water by using liquified aluminum sulfate pumped into the water
using a chlorine injection pump to cause the clay to coagulate in the settling tank and then remove it from the settling tank by draining it under pressure.

Propain is horrible especially when your paying 3 times the cost it was per pound that was 3 years ago.

pedmec

@JakeCK I don't think he got it lol.

ChrisJ

Back in 2011 when I switched from oil to NG I needed a temporary water heater as the rotted oil fired boiler did our hot water.

I bought a 20 gallon 20A 120V heater. A family of 3 got by for a few months on that and it wasn't bad. We did have to try and plan things like multiple showers around it but it wasn't a big deal

leonz

pedmec said:

@JakeCK I don't think he got it lol.

I assume you are referring to me?

When you live on a badly drilled 292 feet deep collapsed well that collapsed all the way to the bottom of the 92 steel casing in three episodes lost 2 pumps because the genius that drilled the well said he does not use pump rope or torque arrestors and live without running water over seven months you learn a lot especially about bad well drillers that will not come and help you.

I am fortunate that one good local well driller did come to help us and he pulled the pump up with his pump pulling truck, cleaned it, tested it and set it in the well casing and we had water.

This was all after the well driller said he hit bed rock with the well casing when he drilled it and the well had 270 of standing water column in it.

If he had installed a 2 pipe jet pump it would have stopped my having to replace a pump almost every year due to lighting strikes.

If you want to see how a water well should be drilled look up www.foremost.ca


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Now all I have to do is pay for the new water heater out of my social security income.

The colloidal clay stopped being an issue for us after several years as our water ran clear after that.
We have a bit of iron and sulphur in our water anyway.

Robert_25

ChrisJ said:

Back in 2011 when I switched from oil to NG I needed a temporary water heater as the rotted oil fired boiler did our hot water. I bought a 20 gallon 20A 120V heater. A family of 3 got by for a few months on that and it wasn't bad. We did have to try and plan things like multiple showers around it but it wasn't a big deal.

It is amazing what you can get by with if you have no choice.  Our family of 4 lived in a 650 sq ft cottage for 6 months while our house was being remodeled.  It had 1 bathroom with a 30 gallon electric water heater.  Other than a little planning around showers and doing the dishes it was not a problem.  

Our main house has a 50 gallon electric water heater and that is plenty for us.