![\"IMG_5614\"](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/IMG_5614-200x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe bath was hot, the lavender salts were fragrantly soothing, and I was truly relaxed. Ahhhh…<\/p>\n
CLANG!<\/p>\n
It sounded like something large had fallen over, but I heard it through the heating vent. I listened and heard a soft hsssss, like the heat had come on.<\/p>\n
I really, really want to stay in the bathtub. I’m feeling more relaxed than I have in days. I sank down again.<\/p>\n
Something about that sound, though… And when I stuck my hand over the vent, no air was flowing.<\/p>\n
Hmmm.<\/p>\n
Slowly I pulled myself out of the tub, put on my robe, and walked down to the main floor. The sound got louder.<\/p>\n
I ran down to the basement level and it was really loud.<\/p>\n
Water. The sound of water pouring out of…<\/p>\n
Somewhere big.<\/p>\n
The carpet in Tom’s office was already wet. The bathroom floor was covered with water and I almost fell as I scrambled to see what was happening in the utility room. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from but seemed to be the general area of the water heater.<\/p>\n
I started screaming. I had no idea what to do. So I grabbed my phone and called our community’s security office.<\/p>\n
She sent a fireman to help me find the shutoff valve – oh, the advantages of small mountain communities – and over the phone, she tried to help me find the valve. “It’s\u00a0near the street, it’s where they read the meter,” she said. I couldn’t remember ever seeing our water meter or a water valve outside.<\/p>\n
I gave up and ran back inside, back down to the utility room. I looked for something to shut off on top of the water heater, but nothing was obvious and I was afraid to mess with it.<\/p>\n
And then I remembered: We have an indoor shutoff valve. I wouldn’t have even known about it except that our handyman had mistakenly shut off the outside water when he was making a repair in our bathroom last year. He’d showed me both valves then.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I reached up – could barely grab the handle – and turned. Better! I turned faster and the water stopped. Thank God!<\/p>\n
I called the security office back and told her. Then I got our little wet-vac bucket out of the cabinet and tried to start sucking up the water.<\/p>\n
This was a truly pathetic effort. The wet vac would suck up about a cup of water and then quit, regurgitating half the water back onto the floor.<\/p>\n
Then I heard a man’s footsteps and voice upstairs. It was the fire department guy, and he’d been knocking at the door but of course I didn’t hear him. He kindly checked and confirmed that the water heater was the source of the leak.<\/p>\n
I called my favorite plumber and asked if he’d be able to install a new water heater tomorrow. He wasn’t available this week, but he advised me to call my insurance about the water mitigation.<\/p>\n
I did, and had what seemed an interminable conversation with the adjuster, in which she told me stories about her experiences with broken water heaters.<\/p>\n
I already knew that the main issue with water damage in a basement is mold.<\/p>\n
Everything has to get completely, thoroughly dried, and as I thought about it I realized that if you have carpets it’s impossible to accomplish that without professional help.<\/p>\n
“This is why you have insurance,” the adjuster said. Of course, it also means our premiums will go up.<\/p>\n
It’s not cheap to get it fixed. At a minimum it’s thousands of dollars.\u00a0Don’t try to do it on your own, or you may end up with a mold problem that is a hundred times more expensive than a water heater.<\/p>\n
Within about three hours after the call to the insurance, the two water mitigation guys showed up and set to work. It was 10:45 p.m.<\/p>\n
They had to move furniture, books, and many of the bins and miscellania that were on the floor. They ripped up the carpet, padding, and wooden baseboard, wet-vac’d the remaining water up, and set up six big fans and two gigantic dehumidifiers.<\/p>\n
Those things are LOUD. It’s like having a jet in the basement. I can hear them everywhere in the house.<\/p>\n
It’s going to be a long couple or three weeks before this gets cleaned up and everything’s back to normal.<\/p>\n
At least I was able to find the valve and stop the water from gushing. If the water heater had burst while I was gone, it could have been several days before it was discovered, and everything in the entire basement floor – both of our offices, with all our computers and files, and my art and art supplies – would have been ruined.<\/p>\n
We were lucky. But also stupid for not knowing these basics about water heaters.<\/p>\n
You don’t want this to ever happen to you. Today’s penny is a 2000, the year that this house was built – and probably the year that this water heater was installed.<\/p>\n The bath was hot, the lavender salts were fragrantly soothing, and I was truly relaxed. Ahhhh… CLANG! It sounded like something large had fallen over, but I heard it through the heating vent. I listened and heard a soft hsssss, like the heat had come on. I really, really want to stay in the bathtub. … read more Don’t let this happen to you<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[320],"tags":[84,768,765,766,767,145],"class_list":["post-7157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shelter","tag-84","tag-damage","tag-heater","tag-insurance","tag-valve","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7157"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7168,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7157\/revisions\/7168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n1. If your water heater is more than 12 years old, replace it.
\n2. Every year, or twice a year if you use it a lot, flush the water heater<\/a> to clean out the sediment<\/a> (although if you have NEVER done this for years<\/a>, you might wait until the new one)
\n3. When you’re going on vacation or are away for more than a few days, turn off the main water supply.
\n4. Know where the valve is – both inside and outside – to shut off water. It’s not only heaters that break – water lines can, too.
\n5. Have good homeowner’s insurance.<\/p>\n![\"feb](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/IMG_5610-e1456891301533-300x183.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"