How many of you have had the pleasure of wrestling with fixing a home appliance with a warrantee? If you have you know that figuring out the problem, getting the correct parts and getting it serviced are such a party!
Let me give you a flavor for our water heater “saga” by saying that it involved taking hot showers outside at the community pool…now on to the story.
To understand what happens next you must know that Sara and I are both stubborn and thrifty.
For about a month we were noticing that our water heater was going out every couple of days and we thought (very incorrectly) that it was getting blown out because of all of the wind storms we were getting. Well this pace escalated where we were relighting it at least once a day and then it wouldn’t stay lit long enough to get upstairs and take a shower.
Now begins the thrify part of the story… this thing is under warrantee for sure right it is only three years old
Like most people I never think about a warrantee or insurance until I need it. So I start doing research online and find out that this is not an uncommon thing for water heaters in general and especially not GE water heaters.
So now it is time… You guessed it! To call customer service..
The said politely – Tear the guts out of the bottom of your water heater so we can check if a “major” part is broken and then give us a call back….hummmmm sounds fun!
So I started taking parts off of the bottom of the water heater after turning the gas off.. I remember the old water heaters where you could literally reach in and touch the flames…
Well this new one was sealed tighter than the lunar module that landed on the moon. Layer after layer of screws and gaskets, oh and of course those screws that need to open by that special hex screw-driver which I had to run to the hardware store.
After ripping the beast open and laying it innards out on the garage floor, I called back customer service and they had me check this safety device fuse that was at the very bottom and it was fine. They said all we can do is send you a replacement gasket to put it back together…well I told them so send it fuming with gratitude
Well at this point we had gone over a week without hot water..not a great thing for our marriage 😉 so I called a plumbing service that got great marks online for fixing water heaters.
That afternoon a guy that looked like he should be the lead singer for a punk band came over and this dude knew his stuff. He explained (as my brother George had about 5 days before) that it was the thermocouple, and these things go all of the time.
This crazy simple little part had taken down my mighty water heater (see the dead one below) and we were now back in business.
If you don’t learn something from these fun times then what are they for..right?
So what did I learn
- Pay once to learn and then do it yourself the second time
- Showering at the pool is ok..you pay for it!
- Listen to your brothers especially if they are handy (George you rock)
- Don’t be afraid take something apart if you have done your research
Bring it on water heater we are ready for you next time.
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