THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 1-11-04
FIX YOUR OWN DAMN WATER HEATER
Dear Old House Doctor,
My water
heater has stopped heating water. Could it be the electrical connection? What
in the world can I do?
Signed
Filthy From
Not Bathing
Dear Filthy,
I hold my
nose as I answer. Your electric water heater is suffering from Lime-o-nitis. It
has built up so much lime that the lower element has burned out. As you say,
What can you do?
You could
smoke a couple of bongs and go into the woods to burn a circle, but praying
does little for electric water heaters. I know, because God told me that she
wants you to use natural gas.
Okay, I’ll
tell you how to rejuvenate your electric water heater, but you’d better be
prepared to work at it. Otherwise you need to shell out up to four hundred
bucks for a new one, and I know you have more bongs to do, so bear with me for
a couple of weeks whilst I explain this.
Electric
water heaters heat water using an element that comes in contact with the water
itself, as opposed to gas heaters that use flames to heat the tank. With me so
far? Good. The water around here has a lot of lime in it (calcium carbonate to
you cavers), and the action of heating causes oxidation, which coats your
heating elements with a hard white scale. This eventually causes the element to
burn out. Don’t axe me why, it just DOES.
Your
electric water heater has two elements; one halfway up the tank, and one at the
bottom. The bottom element does the lion’s share of the work, and is the first
to burn out. HINT; if you replace one, replace the other! Labor is the main
expense in any construction project, unless you build with gold or platinum.
Anyway, you don’t need to toss the whole thing. A couple of hours work will
make your electric water heater last nearly forever. Trouble is, you need to do
this every other year.
Do WHAT?,
you axe. Unh-unh-unh. You gotta wait til necks time. Cold showers for you, you
dweeb.
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