That Was Quick

     I've bought cars for less -- okay, it wasn't much of a car, it was ten years ago and my first step after the purchase was to have a rebuilt transmission put in, but still: replacement water heaters aren't cheap.

     They are, however, about as convenient as possible, at least around here.  A couple of decades ago, one of the large plumbing companies in the Indianapolis metro figured out that they were spending a significant proportion of their service calls replacing water heaters.  While customers were pleased when it went quickly, they were really annoyed when it took more than a day.  And the process had significant inefficiencies: you can't stock a service truck with an assortment of water heaters in the same way you can load it up with pipe, couplers, valves, etc.; if you're selling a wide range of water heaters, customers are going to take longer to make up their minds.  The work was taking multiple visits and skilled plumbers were spending time making estimates and shuttling bulky water heaters around instead of taking old ones out and plumbing new ones in.

     There was a niche for a company that could get the job done all in one day.

     They partnered up with a reputable manufacturer (and there are interesting opportunities there), made some clever choices about stocking and transportation (you do not, in fact, have to be a journeyman plumber to drive around a box truck full of water heaters), trained a group of estimators, and hung out a shingle: you get hot water today, or they'll pay you for the job!

     It's a heck of a system.  I called them after enjoying a brisk cold shower and my hair was still a little damp when the estimator showed up, checked out the basement, took photos and showed me the options.  We negotiated a little and I signed up for a slightly larger water heater, nineteen and a half years newer than the old one.*  He made some notations on his iPad and told me, "Alex and his helper will be by in a couple of hours."

     Ninety minutes later, my phone rang while I was bushwhacking a path from the back yard patio to the back gate.†  The truck arrived as I was unlocking the gate and it took about three and a half hours from then until there was a shiny new water heater in my basement and the old one was aboard the truck, ready to be recycled into cans and calcium supplements.‡  The new one is a little taller and sits in a drip pan that should protect it from the occasional basement flood (yes, it's supposed to be the other way around, but...).  It's got a fancy expansion tank (the city insists) and the safety valve is correctly plumbed down to floor level.  And the water is H-O-T hot!

     Yeah, it wasn't cheap.  But it was fast and involved remarkably little fuss.  No raised eyebrows at (or extra charge for) my preference for copper, no snooty lecture about temperature settings (unlike another plumbing firm I have employed), and no mess left behind.  The floor wasn't even wet.  (The floor drain is just a couple feet away -- props to the 1920s architect and builder, who put everything but the kitchen sink within a few feet of the floor drain: the water heater, basement laundry area and sink are under the ground-floor washroom.)  I knew the water heater would need to be replaced some day.  It turned out that day was yesterday.

     In February, I started receiving Social Security, which makes up for the nice raises I haven't got since 2008 ("Times are tough," they told us.  "Pass up your raises this year.  We'll make it up to you."  Somehow, times never got less tough afterward and us techies have never seen more than 1% in any year since).  I guess the Fates noticed.
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*  Estimator: "You know, that's about twice as long as they're expected to last."  I did not know.  I have never had to replace one, not in the houses I grew up in, not in houses I have owned and not in houses I have rented.  The only one I've seen replaced was at the North Campus, and the new one sat in the basement for months before it was installed.  From the smell of the hot water, I suspect mice made a nest in while it sat, but Building Maintenance doesn't believe my theory.  Fine, I've got an electric teakettle in the kitchenette.  (On second thought, I was involved in replacing one water heater in the late 1980s, shortly after my parents moved back to Indy and long after I was on my own. Dad had removed the old one and set the new one in place, but I'm the family go-to expert for soldering.  Home plumbing comes close to being exactly halfway between the big coaxial line I solder rarely and the small wire I solder often.)
 
† The weather has not been mowing friendly and the back yard has been thick with violets, white and pink Spring Beauty, yellow wild strawberry flowers and another purple-blue flower that may be Creepin' Charlie (Ground Ivy).  Call them weeds if you must, but the bees love them and I'm enjoying them too, though not quite the same way.  I'll have to get out there with a string trimmer, by and by.
 
‡ I'm not saying Indiana water is hard, but the old water heater was thumping and banging pretty good from the thick lime scale.  My glass-sided electric kettle goes from clear to opaque in a week of use, and vinegar's the only thing that'll remove the stuff.