Having to call on a Saturday you know is never going to be good. I asked Richard if we should just wait till Monday, because it wasn’t actually cold yet, but he insisted on getting it done because I like me a comfy warm shower. I love that man.

I went looking. The contractor whom we’d spent $2000 on a weekend hot water heater replacement call, a company that only did water heaters but also the ones who were available when no plumbers we knew were, had emailed me the receipt. Hunting at the speed of Gmail is definitely the way to go–there it was. March last year. Date, amount, phone number, name of the company, everything. Yes it’s past a year, but one can hope.

It turns out the warranty was for six years on parts, which no plumber has ever offered us before, and given how we’ve gone through water heaters, that extra amount paid for itself today.

It turns out the reason the shower was barely lukewarm the last two days was not that the thing was failing–it already had. It was that it’s been so hot the last two days that that’s how our water got warmed enough to still be tolerable in the morning. Barely, but it was. The water heater is in kind of its own little cubby and the only access to it is from outside; protected, temp wise, but not much. So, yeah, the guy said the gas had been cut off altogether and that it was an expensive part. But it was covered.

$179 worth of labor later, not only is it fixed, he said this was a new model that turned out to be having lots of problems with that part so not only did he replace it, he replaced it with an older type that was more reliable.

I think that was the cheapest fix-it call we’ve ever had.

He emailed me the receipt.