Whew! Even though we don’t need to use our renter’s insurance policy, I’m once again thrilled it’s there.
Last night, around 10:30, I heard Niagara Falls come rushing in. Our hot water tank, located in a closet in our half-bathroom, was spewing hot water out the top.
Gushing. Exploding. Rapidly. Hot water. Ow.
I ran in there, yelled for help, and ran to the hall to throw off the circuit breaker for the hot water tank and the furnance/AC unit, which was also getting wet right next to it.
My husband had to use a vice grip to turn the valve off at the top.
Water was everywhere and we were bewildered. What in the world happened?
We called the maintenance man and he told us as long as we had the water off, it would be fine (though we wouldn’t have hot water) until he could come in the morning.
Well, he came, took one look at it and saw rust on the outside of the tank. He said it was shot, and we’ll be getting a new one today.
He said water would have continued to gush out until someone turned it off. Whoa.
If we weren’t home, that could have been hours and hours and hours. Our second-floor neighbor below probably would be the first to notice it in our absence.
I am so grateful the thing exploded when we were home. Even though insurance would pay to replace our soggy possessions, I’m so glad it doesn’t have to come to that.
So, once again, I’m reminded why I’m glad we’re renters right now, and why I’m absolutely glad we have renter’s insurance. If you live in an apartment, get it today! It’s like $10 per month…you can afford it. You can’t afford not to have a policy.
[...] bathrooms (Our hot water tank is going to be replaced today, so I won’t be cleaning the bathroom until the serviceman [...]
Funny that this should come up today (ok… not ha ha funny, but ironic anyway). DH and I were watching an episode of Myth Busters online yesterday and they confirmed the “myth” that a hot water heater can shoot off like a rocket if both safety features failed. I don’t remember exactly how the first safety feature works, but the second one allows the water to overflow from the unit instead of building more pressure inside. I watched several hot water heaters “explode” for real… shooting it very far into the air (through roof tops and all), only to land minutes later!
Praise God for the flooding it caused… it could have destroyed far more and injured many!
Amazing how God takes care of us! I’m glad you guys and your stuff are ok!
Yeah, as crazy as it sounds I’m actually thankful it happened when it did. I’m glad we were both home and able to deal with it.
Plus, knowing that the repair folk would be here early in the morning got me out of bed. Sometimes, it’s a struggle to get out of those warm covers if I don’t have a compelling reason.
I’m glad the water tank didn’t explode through the roof. If that happened (and nobody was hurt) I would laugh my head off–because that’s just absurd.
I’m glad you got the repairs done quickly! For about six or seven days last week we had very little hot water. We’ve had a lot of cloudy, rainy days, so the solar powered hot water heaters obviously weren’t doing much. And the electric powered one was broken. It was difficult to do dishes and I took at least one, if not two, cold showers with the faucet all the way up to “hot.” It wasn’t fun. But they replaced it just about the time the sun came back out. You never know how much you rely on those things until they don’t work!
[...] at Sense to Save is actually the one who got me thinking about it. Once again, she had a near miss with needing to use her renter’s insurance. I was feeling relief over my health insurance choices when I stumbled across her post and it got [...]