Friday, 15 January 2010, 4:18pm Pacific Time: A slow but steady stream of 135 degree water begins its meander across the laundry room floor.

I need to pause at this point to give a shout-out to my laundry room floor, it’s been through a lot. Not only does it get the daily abuse from the cats using their litter boxes, but it’s also been through some delightful (but relatively minor) flooding. Some of you may recall the Great Christmas Ham Incident of 2006 – Christmas Ham that was put down the disposal caused a sewer pipe backup resulting in ham erupting into the bathtub and out the washing machine hose and onto the laundry room floor.

Needness to say, I have mad props for the laundry room floor and its tolerance level.

Back to Friday. I was doing some laundry, all was fine, no ham down the disposal or anything like that. I go back to put the clothes into the dryer and notice that the carpet in the laundry room is COMPLETELY soaked, but the water is NOT coming from under the washer! It’s coming out of the hot water heater!

Oh crap.

There was a constant drip coming from the bottom of the hot water heater, and it had leaked probably a gallon of water into the surrounding carpet. We quickly cleaned up all the water and turned the water off to the heater. We put pans under it to catch the water that continued to drip – now from three different places. Oh goodie just what I wanted to deal with on a Friday night as we’re getting ready to leave for dinner out.

So – I started making some calls and found out that Sears had the same model Kenmore 30 gallon natural gas (just the newer version) available and it was highly likely that it could be installed the next day (Saturday). The cost of the hot water heater was less than $300, but after installation fees, pipes, hoses, drip pans, and permit lookups, the cost was up to $900 and it was only Friday night and I’m on the phone ordering it.

Saturday – installers arrive mid-afternoon and the install begins, and the costs begin to rise more. $400 more because the old water heater was WAY out of code and all sorts of new pipes and trays and drains have to be installed. Apparently whomever installed the first one did a sloppy job.

So all in all, $1300 over a two day period. It’s like going to Vegas – except Vegas isn’t as fun. But that hot shower sure did feel good .

Oh – and to whomever eventually buys my house when I move out some day, you’re welcome.