Avoid Lowes gas water heaters (Whirlpool by American Water Heaters)

In summer the only gas use I have is hot water as well. This summer it has averaged about 12 ccf/month (once I account for vacation, less if I don't factor that in.) I expect to knock that down another 2 ccf/month when my new showerhead arrives. Nearly all of the summer bill is customer fee, gas cost me $5 last month (9 ccf) but the bill was $33.

My winter peak was 230 ccf in January. Rates were higher then so with taxes and that customer fee, I was nipped for $260. I'm hoping that the new showerheads, front loader, condensing furnace, and continuing insulation/tightening projects will get me down under 175 ccf as a peak for next winter.

 

I figure my current pilot & standby use as about 3-4 ccf/month based on before/after vacation readings. The pilot is inefficient, but not all wasted since some percent of its output goes to keeping the tank warm. Better would be to have pilot off and flue closed...but hey, I'm just glad the pilot will stay lit right now. That open flue is going to result in some natural draft from the hot tank.

 

Nah, I've got too much stuff in there. I still like the house and it is getting better as I replace things.

I did consider hacksawing out the water heater and returning it to Lowes for some sort of store credit. If changing out the gas valve hadn't worked my back up plan was to load the tank in the back of my truck in an hour, followed by a trip to Home Depot for a GE (made by Rheem.)

 

What a waste of fuel that would be. No, I think the approriate way would be to have a BYOB tailgate party at night in the parking lot, construct a trebuchet from their landscape/fence timbers, then use it to aim the water heater squarely for the "O" in Lowes.

 

Argg...had an adventure in plumbing tonight. I got my new Roadrunner showerhead today and had purchased a Danco "Perfect Match" shower arm in the same finish to replace the old one. It's nothing more than a bent piece of pipe with a pretty finish and threads on the end. Hard to screw that up, right?

Well, the dipsticks running the factory in China (yes, it was made there) apparently can't be bothered to sharpen the thread cutters...EVER. The threads were cut shallow and nearly square--it looked like some sort of external rifling pattern with lands and grooves rather than pipe thread. It threaded on with some difficulty, but I could not get it water tight on either end after several tries and a lot of thread tape. Since I lack a thread cutter that large it was a no go.

The shower arm got pretty dinged up during all this, so I took it back as defective. I went to the rack at Home Depot to see if I could find just one that was properly cut. No joy, every friggin' one of the Danco's in every finish had the same defect. I told the fellows running plumbing and the adjacent remodeling helpdesk about it and suggested they ship the whole lot back as defective after labeling every one of them as such. (That's the only way you get it through to a supplier, make 'em pay.) So then I swung by Lowes hoping that they had a different lot or shipment because I knew they carried the same line (unfortunately.) Same defect. What an incredible waste of material and packaging. I don't even want to think about all the water damage that will occur through half-nice person installs where somebody neglects to check behind the cover plate for leaks.

The good news is that the old original one went back in with no problems at all, sealed on the first try on both ends. That verifies it's not the novice plumber at fault. I've got about two hours invested now in a simple 6" bent piece of pipe...and still don't have the one I want in there. Time for a heavy dark ale.