The day before Thanksgiving and I'm sitting in the kitchen just beside the door to the basement. Suddenly I hear an explosion of water below me and the hot water heater alarm goes off moments later. I run downstairs to find that the water heater has become a fountain; the cramp holding the PEX tubing to the hot water outflow pipe has failed and water is everywhere. I turn off the water and call for service thinking, "Yeah, sure, the day before Thanksgiving."
A few hours later, the servicemen show up and repair the connection. I point to the cold water inflow pipe and say, "It's the same type of connection, and was installed at the same time. Can you replace that as well?" They remove the cramp and look in amazement. The brass fitting connecting the copper inlet pipe to the PEX tubing has corroded clean through. There was barely anything left holding it all together. The inflow pipe comes in before the alarm valve; if IT had broken, my basement would have flooded with water had it happened when no one was home. And it would have broken within weeks, if not days.
$112 later, which I felt was very reasonable, and I've got a working water system again. So for Thanksgiving tomorrow, I will once again be thankful to be living in Woonsocket, where such attentive and reasonable service is readily available. I'll be thankful that the pipe connected to the alarm valve broke first. And I'll be thankful to the folks at B&B for squeezing me in on the day before a holiday.
