So one Sunday out of the blue, my water heater decided to die. There weren’t really any warning signs, I just noticed there wasn’t any hot water in the morning. After going down into the basement, there was water everywhere. 40 gallons! It looked like the bottom of my water heater just gave out.

That’s my old unit. It was installed in November of 1996 and lasted until October 2007. Not a bad run I suppose, but I didn’t like that it died on me after 3 years of my ownership. Those dents in the side display my frustration.

After cleaning up the mess of water and turning off the main feed, I headed down to Home Depot to purchase a new tank. I’ve never installed a water heater before, so I wanted to keep it simple and pick up one that looked and functioned the same way, so I could just switch the old one out for the new one with little hassle.

I settled on a GE Smart Water unit with a 6 year warranty. It cost a little over $300.

Along with that, I picked up a Water Heater installation kit for $19.95, which was basically the water hose connections and a flexible gas line. I also picked up one of those drainage pans for an additional $14.95 that sits under the water heater. Those are always nice to have.

Installing the water heater was pretty simple. I decided to sit the unit on five 2 inch blocks in the pan, so it’s not sitting flush in the pan. I cut those from some old pressure treated wood I had sitting in the garage. The pans have a connection in the front which you can screw a hose onto. Good if you’d like to run something to your drain in case something starts leaking.

I figured putting it on blocks would be helpful, even with the pan. If there was a leak, the bottom of the water heater can get rusted and damaged. In fact that’s what looked to be the problem with the old one that died. There were a lot of rust chips on the bottom. It sat flat on the cement floor, which I’m sure has had water every now and then, based on all the water proofing work I’ve done down there. For the blocks, I also cut some very thin slices which I used to shim the sides that were not even. One thing that is important when installing these things is making sure it is level on all sides with one of those bubble levelers.

Connecting the water lines to the unit was the hardest thing to do because the existing copper pipes were 1/2 inch and the connections on the new unit were 3/4 inch. The guy at Home Depot suggested I grab the 1/2 to 3/4 connectors, which required soldering. I also spent an extra 20 bucks on a blow torch and a roll of solder. Let me tell you about soldering. You’re either good at it or you’re not. I happen to be one of those people that suck. I managed to get one of the fittings connected but the other one would not go on at all because the pipe wasn’t completely dry. 2 hours of my life wasted just trying to get that second one on, while burning through entire rolls of solder.

After running out of solder, I went to the local mom and pop hardware store to pick up more. The older guy there suggested I just use compression fittings because they just screw on the old pipe and make an air tight fit. What? Compression fittings? The Home Depot guy didn’t say anything about those! I didn’t know they existed. I purchased 2 compression fittings with a 1/2 female on one end and a 3/4 inch threaded male connection on the other end, which would screw into those new silver water hoses connected to the boiler. I got those on in less than 10 minutes! [insert forehead slap]

So if you want a money and time saving tip, use compression connections instead of the ones you have to solder on! Especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. Also, don’t under estimate the value of your local mom and pop hardware store. I wish I went there first because it would have saved me from having to buy a blow torch, solder, and the copper connections that I wasted so much time and money with. Another tip, for the compression connections to work best, you have to have a clean pipe. So I purchased a little pipe cutter that made a nice clean cut and sanded the copper a bit with sand paper.

Anyway, I had also decided to update the gas pipe, since the old one looked pretty ratty and didn’t have an efficient shut off valve within easy reach. Playing with gas is always a fun activity. I was worried about that the most going into this project, but it turned out to be the easiest aspect. I simply removed the old pipe at the elbow of the gas connection and installed a small 5 inch steel pipe ($3.00).

At the end of that, I screwed on a shut off valve ($7.00). Then at the end of that, I put on a new 5 foot steel pipe ($10.00). At the end of THAT, i used the flexible gas line (see the second image above) that came in the Water Heater Installation Kit to make a connection to the water heater. Before scewing the connections on, I used putty goop on the threads to help prevent any leaks and tested each connection with soapy sponge. Soap suds are a good way to see leaks.

Now it was time for the test. I turned on the water and the tank filled. I could hear some air squeaks and saw a couple water leaks coming from the compression fittings, but those were taken care of by just tightening them a little more. After the tank was full, I turned on the gas. These new water heaters have a button that makes a spark to initiate the pilot light. That was a nice surprise. I was prepared to bend down and stuck a match in the opening to light it but that was sealed off. There is just a little window there where you can see if the flame is on. I’m not sure if that’s the standard now, or if something exclusive to GE brands, but it’s cool and safe.

It took a little bit to get the pilot light on but once it did and I set the temperature, the boiler fired up and started heating the water. About an hour later, I had hot water again. All in all, it was an interesting project that wasn’t as intimidating as I initially thought it wold be. It would have gone much more smoothly if I had used the compression connections from the start. Lesson learned there. And here I am blogging about it so hopefully other people don’t make the same mistakes.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 4th, 2007 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Interior, Projects (completed). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.