Next month will be three years since I was in the emergency room of St. Fancis hospital, where a heart doctor was explaining, 'We are going to cut open your chest, right down the middle, spread wide your ribs, remove your heart, put in a cow valve, put it back, and you will be good as new.' "That's option A,' I answered. "What is option B?' "We can bury you,' he smiled, and I immediately chose option A. When I emerged from the hospital a week later, I was on top of the world. If being darn near starved, unable to stand straight up, scared to death I was going to cough, or sneeze, or laugh, or do anything else that would jerk those metal stitches that was holding my rib cage together. On top of the world. Until we made it to Rout4 4, Piedmont to find our heating system had taken a vacation. Being a handy sort of guy, I knew exactly what to do to being it back on line, so to speak. But the doctor had told my wife I was no to do anything for a month. I couldn't lift over two punds. I couldn't go into the basement, take apart the burner, put in a new nozzle, adjust the anodes, and bleed the line. I knew what to do, but I couldn't do it. And I couldn't find anyone else that would listen carefully and do the work for me. So, with electric heaters, and a blanket or two, we coped. We coped for three weeks before my wife made me swear to just sit in the recliner and do nothing but change channels on the tv until she returned. I swore. I took an oath, I would have slapped my hand on the Bible and took another oath, but she didn't require that. She was sure everything was under control when she left. Two hours later, when she walked in the door, I was sitting right where she left me, watching television. But the house was warm. She looked at me and demanded to know how that happened. 'It was a miracle,' I just walked by the thermostat and jiggled it a lilttle bit, and the furnace came on.' It hasn't failed since. On Thursday, it wasn't the furnace that laid down and died but the Water Heater that started spouting warm water out the side, into the basement floor, and out into the yard. I had planned to have a nice lunch with a good freind but he called in sick and I took it upon myself to install another water heater. The big box appliance store had one advertised cheap, but it was a bait and switch. I ended up with one that wasn't cheap. I bought everthing I could possibly need to make the swap. Yeah, right. The old heater was not an easy ripout. It was a 50-gallon monster completely full of a find blend of calcium, from the well, mud, also from the well, and rust, from oxidation. I tried for hours to get the water out of it, so I could move it, but my darling wife had erected tables and filled them with breakables, which made the job dangerous at best. Finally, dragging and cussing and slipping and sliding and covering the floor with calcium, mud, rust and water I got it out the door. Then I was ready to reeplace. It was a piece of cake. It was amazingly easy, and within minutes I had everything buttoned up and was waiting for the water to heat so I could shower. But the water didn't heat. I checked the elements, and sure enough, I had burned one to a crisp. I bought one, then found I didn't have a wrench to fit, even though I had one of those five wrench sets made just for water heater elements. So I had to go to town and buy another wrench. I had been working on this minor job for hours, and when I finally got the bad element out, I found I had purchased a short replacement when Ii needed a long replacement. So I did what every junkyard mechanic would do.... I screwed in the wrong element and turned on the power. We have hot water. I have decided that I am not fully qualified to give advice to anyone attempting this. Call me. I can tell you how to do exactly the wrong thing, step by step, until you are ready to tear your hair out and get hot water  yourself. And I can give one more piece of valuable advice. When you have everything done, with the old water heater on the patio outside the basement door, get it loaded in the truck and take it to the scrapyard.
It will bring $16, if you don't lose all of the calcium, mud, and rusty water.