Hot Water

Before we went to the movies last night, we'd left my parents at our house installing a new water heater. Our hot water heater had been leaking from the top for awhile, creating a small but consistent stream of water down the side of our garage. Since my mom manages the property, she and my dad had come to fix it. Apparently it wasn't fixable, so they were there to replace it.


When we got out of the movies last night I had a voicemail waiting for me. My mom had called to tell me that she and my dad had tried for over an hour to light the pilot on the new water heater, but to no avail.


Now, my parents are pretty capable people. It is not like them to have such trouble with something like this. I called my mom back, and she explained that they must have read over the instructions and double checked every step about 20 times. She was going to call the manufacturer as soon as they opened this morning, but we would have no hot water for the evening.


Well, at least we'd both showered recently. An evening with no hot water wouldn't be too much of a trouble, right?


This morning, the manufacturer said that they could call out a plumber to light the pilot, but because it was still the weekend, the plumber would charge a weekend rate (instead of the visit just being covered by the warantee) equal to about 1/3 of the cost of the water heater. My parents decided that they would just take the water heater back and try another one instead.


We got the old-new water heater packed back up and in the truck, and after a short time my parents returned with new-new water heater. We hooked this new one up, but when we got around to the pilot light - it again wouldn't light.

My mom checked the serial number on this one, and the manufacturing date. Apparently they were both manufactured on the same day (Jan. 1st, 2008 - a mere 6 days ago), and were only about 50 units apart from one another. We spent about an hour, taking turns, reading through the directions for this piezoelectric ignition system, attempting to light it. But alas, we were destined to not have hot water for another night; the plumber would have to come tomorrow.

At this point I was starting to really want a shower, but I wasn't about to take a cold one in this weather. So we headed over to my parents' house to clean up. Hopefully the hot water will be back tomorrow...