Hot Water Heater: A Saga of EPIC proportions

Of course, you probably know, we have no hot water heater. Its been over a month now... heck, I think its been almost 2!

It all started when I turned on the hot water and only cold came out. Now, if it were winter, that would make sense... it seriously takes about 3 - 5 minutes for our hot water to work its way to actually staying hot in our pipes (we live in a mobile home, our pipes run under our house... when its 20 degrees out... it happens LOL). We went out to check the hot water heater, to find it pouring water out the bottom! They aren't supposed to to that! :o) We're not sure how long it had been leaking, but I know NOW that there is a lifted part of our linoleum near the water heater closet... YEA.

Rick headed off to work, I boiled a pot of water to do dishes :o) He calls me later to tell me that the cheapest he could find was $400 (for a gas mobile home water heater)... cool, we can handle that... oh wait, we had like $20 in our account LOL

First I called my church, only to be told they couldn't help us, not even enough to tell us if one of the members was a plumber. They had me leave a voicemail for the maintenance guy, who had gone home for the day and STILL has never returned my frantic call LOL Racking my brain, two days later I called a local group that helps in financial situations. They couldn't help us, BUT they directed me to somewhere that maybe could.

I called Emergency Family Services in Boulder and left a message. They called back a couple days later and told me, without even a pause that they would buy our hot water heater... but we needed to have it installed. We were incredibly greatful and said we'd get it done! When I went to pick up the check, I found out that they are NOT government funded. There are two wonderful annonymous benefactors that created this fund, and the group is to spend the money in the fund to help people, like us, out. They'd already bought THREE hot water heaters in that week alone!! I wish I could thank the guys! :o)

Rick and our BIL go pick up the tank and set about installing it. Yeah, trouble on the horizon. First, it won't light. Then, some sort of condensation leakage. THEN, gas leakage. We kept tinkering... but to no avail. The last time we tinkered was over 2 weeks ago.

Yesterday, my MIL's cousin was visiting and he said HE had installed a few water heaters in his time and he wanted to check ours out. So he spent the day here with my FIL tinkering. They made quite a few trips to Lowes :o) But again, to no avail.

This time the story takes an interesting turn. The water heater we bought originally is made by American Water Heater Company. They have a class action lawsuit against them right now. Great. Basically our problem is that something on the thermostat threads left, but the company ONLY makes that part threading right. How strange, but how like us to wind up with something so fun. Right. :o)

My FIL & cousin Jim found a place that has what we need though. So eventually (hopefully next weekend!), we'll be packing this BAD boy back into its box and returning it to Lowes for our money back, and heading over to Ferguson's to buy a hot water heater that will work and will be easier to install! :o)

In the meantime, we will continue to boil stock pots full of water to wash dishes and to add to our 4 gallons of water in a 5 gallon bucket to bathe with LOL Like I told someone earlier.. its our own version of Little House on the Prairie, except we're Little House in the Trailer Park :o)

Hopefully the next installment of our water heater saga will be the final installment! Wish us luck.