It's nice to have hot water.

Hot Water Heater: Before & After

Back in February, Amy & I bought a new water heater for our condo.  The previous one was original to the building… 17 years old!  Over the past year or so we've noticed, shall we say, disappointing performance out of the old thing, so it was time for a switch!

Unpacking the new water heater

Of course, none of this project would have been possible without my awesome Dad, during which I learned more than I think I ever wanted to know about water heaters.

Steve drains the old tank into our 2nd bathroom shower

We had been price comparison shopping for a while on water heaters, looking at capacity, size, and recovery rate.  We also had to take into account the unique space where our water heater is located in our condo, as it's not traditional, which introduced its own set of challenges.  In the end, we bought from a local plumbing contractor supply house, Allied Plumbing.  My family has purchased quite a bit from there over the years and in the end they had the best price.

Amy says "Good Bye" to the old piece of junk

It's a good thing we removed the old unit when we did, because upon inspection after we pulled it out, it looked like the bottom had rusted and it was about to spring a leak.  We dumped it off in the alley and thanks to Chicago's aggressive scrap metal scroungers, it was gone within 30 minutes.

High tech hole creation processes at work

As an added bonus with our water heater project, Dad crafted an aluminum drip tray (since commercially available ones wouldn't fit the dimensions needed).  There's actually a drain in the floor below the water heater, so we positioned it in such a way as to capture water (and keep it out of the kitchen if a problem happened) and then have it funnel in the drain.  To be honest, getting the tray accurately positioned under the heavy water tank was probably the toughest part!

Positioning the tank and drip tray just right

Dad also spent a considerable amount of time reworking the top vent to fit within the goofy space, as well as resizing the pipe fittings for the gas and water lines.  There was a lot of fine tuning.

Dad solders the joints

We experienced a few days of some dripping from some of the connections, but as the water pressure standardized and the calcium in the water helped block things up, everything is quite tight right now.

Our new tank is American-made... if that still matters

Best of all, it's so great to have hot water once again.  It's no longer a coin flip to see who gets the worst shower because of our old malfunctioning heater (Amy usually got the short end of that deal!)

Thanks for the help, Dad!