Working on the farm...

On Tuesday night, I went through our garage to throw out the kitchen trash. Near the side door to the backyard, I noticed a small puddle of water on the garage floor. I followed the puddle's path as it climbed up some drywall to a ledge supporting our water heater. On the ledge was a larger puddle, centered around one of the legs on our water heater. There you could see a little trickle snaking it's way down from the water heater, feeding the puddles below.

Damn! I had heard stories about busted water heaters flooding and wreaking havoc on a home. If our water heater broke, water would get into the walls and into our floors. Add to that cost of clean-up the cost of getting emergency plumbing and water heater replacement. That alone would probably cost us about $1000.

So, I went online right away to confirm my plan on shutting down the water to the water heater. I hurried back into the garage, got my step ladder, and climbed up to the cob-webbed ceiling to reach the water valve into the water heater. "Hmmm...right-tighty, lefty-loosey right? I hope I'm turning this the right way" I thought to myself.

Water into the heater was now shut-off, but there was still water leaking from the appliance. If you don't know much about water heaters, they come in different sizes. Ours was a 50-gallon tank. So if the leak decided to expand to a rupture, we would have fifty gallons of water all over the place. Imagine a gallon of milk spilling...now imagine 50 of em!?

I had to decide whether or not to drain the remaining water, or let it sit for tomorrow (it was already close to midnight).

So I gambled and decided to wait until the next day.