The ongoing saga of home repairs...
On Sunday, while I was working in the garage, I saw water on the floor around the water heater. I quickly ran into the fishroom fearing something had sprung a leak, like the new denitrifier. Everything was dry.
Back to the garage, I see the water pretty much around the water heater only, so I assumed it was rusting out of the base. It came with the house, so it is at least 8 years old. I call good ol' American Home Shield. The recorded message informs me that a plumber will contact me the next day (Monday). That didn't happen, but it was the day before a holiday, and I didn't sweat it. The water wasn't a flood yet.
Wednesday morning, the plumber called to let me know they would be able to come out Thursday. When I went outside to get the paper, I saw water running down my driveway!
In the garage, water was squirting out from under one of the access panels on the water heater, down to the ground and traveled out the garage door. First thing I did was turn off the water to the water heater, then flipped off the breaker. The plumber still couldn't come until today. Fine. We could get by with cold water only for a day.
He arrived, parked in front of my mailbox so the mailman skipped my house
again, and quickly agreed I needed a new water heater. Yes, AHS would cover its replacement, but I'd need to pay for a few upgrades, plus the $55 service call fee.
Permit - $125
Water heater pan - $95
Water detector - $55
Disposal fee - $75
So much for free warranty replacement.
On top of that, he wouldn't install it until Saturday - best case scenario. I'm just going to run up to Home Depot and buy a new one now and install it myself. After all, I'm the one that moved it from where my 280g is currently located, including all the plumbing and rerouting the electricity.
And after paying AHS $3500 since 1999, I canceled my policy. It really hasn't saved me much in that time, when I needed repairs (and that number doesn't even count the payment for each service call). It was nice to get someone out here quickly, but since they tend to not cover items as one would expect, it was a losing endeavor.