New Hot Water Heater!

From day one of living in this house, the hot water heater has always made popping, knocking noises after a shower or using hot water. At first I was weirded out by it but I managed to get used to the sound and not panic thinking someone was knocking at my door immediately post-shower.

I'm learning that getting used to strange noises in your house is not always a good thing. Strange noises typically mean something abnormal is happening. This case was no different.

What we learned is that these mysterious popping noises were actually the system attempting to reheat the water. BUT  there was a large build up of sediment at the bottom of the heater that the hot water was having to burst through (hence the popping noise).

This picture shows what a build up looks like. I never got to see how much was actually built up in ours but I imagine after 2+ years it was not a pretty picture. We looked into getting a hot water heater from Lowes and Home Depot. We found one that was a good price with good ratings but then found out that Home Depot wanted to charge $350 for instillation... That was close to the cost of the heater itself!! Lowes was $250 for instillation but the heater was pretty expensive.

After further investigating our options we decided to go with a local plumber that we know and who has done work on our house. He got us a much higher quality heater and installed it for way cheaper. The plumbing in our house is a little funky too so I was glad to have someone who has been to the house before and knew his way around.

I realize this probably isn't exciting to anyone except for Austin and I. (And the dogs who will no longer confuse the hot water heater with someone knocking at the door). But I thought it was worth sharing in case anyone is having mysterious sounds come from their hot water heater. Don't ignore it!