Water Heater Day

Our server has been on/off a bunch the last couple of days, so I haven't done much posting. Hopefully it will stay on long enough to post this today. That's what we get for living in the sticks!

Our floor repair project is coming along quite well. L has most of the swelled area of subfloor under our windows cut out and squared up for the replacement pieces of 3/4 inch plywood. His back is killing him from this grueling job! L and I do one-person jobs during the week and save the 2man jobs for the weekends. It's my weekend off, so we have 2 whole days to (hopefully) accomplish a LOT.

I've spent my spare time researching and purchasing materials for our project. As long as we've got our bedroom emptied out, we're going to do ALL the redecorating and repair projects that need doing in there. So far I've picked out the paint colors for our accent wall and ceiling, bought wall cupboards that we'll install full-width over the wall our computer desk is on, and purchased our carpet. Next week I'll be cutting out an access for our master bathroom plumbing in our bedroom wall. We have an access in our walk-in closet, but all it accesses is the bathtub drain. Our house is 19 yrs old and I KNOW, from experience, that the bathtub faucet will be going one of these days. There's no sense painting the wall and then cutting into it a couple of months from now. This way, we'll be ahead of the game for a change.

Monday night I woke up in the middle of the night with a HORRIBLE thought. ALL the trim in our bedroom needs to be removed and cut off 1/2 inch to accomodate the new plywood subfloor. YIKES, another putzy job. Hopefully I'll be able to remove and reinstall all the trim without breaking any of it.

This weekend's project is the replacement of our 19 yr old water heater. We've been living with 1 working element in our water heater, for the last 3 yrs. This hasn't been too much of a hardship. We've just had to plan our baths and clothes washing to match our hot water output. We didn't see the point in replacing the element in a 16 yr old water heater. We KNOW that we won't be able to remove the old heater without sloshing some water, so we want to replace the water heater before we lay the new plywood floor.

Yesterday we purchased the ONLY 40 gal, electric water heater in town that didn't have to be special ordered(with a 3 week wait). Sears had one too, but the warranty is voided if you install it yourself; forget that! We're hoping that the connections on the new water heater won't be TOO FAR off where the old ones are. If not, I've scoped out the plumbing section at Menards and we should be able to extend the new connections with relative ease. My Dad's an electrician and is on standby today, in case we have problems with the electrical connections.

I've already got a load of wash going. I want to get our work clothes washed before we turn off the water. With our luck, this project could easily turn into a 2 day span with no running water. We've learned to plan for the worst in any home improvement project!

Well, I guess it's time to wake L up, give him some coffee, and carry in the new water heater, so we can see what we're dealing with. Wish us luck!