Important

[WB9YZU]

Came home to a basement with water in it, about 40 gallons and more coming...

Shut off the water to the water heater, salvaged what could be salvaged of boxes of stuff on the floor, and went shopping for a water heater.

Good Times

 

[kastein]

2003.

5 years, 60,000 miles bumper to bumper with all servicing included. The car has always been very reliable. My wife's has 85000 miles on it.

BMW's that have the battery inside the passenger compartment have what's called a "battery safety terminal." The battery has a small pyro charge in it that separates the power wire to the positive terminal in an accident where the airbags go off, to prevent an electrical fire in the car.

My wife's car had a hatch leak and over a long period of time (I'm guessing years) the battery compartment filled up with water. It corroded the junction box where the positive cable comes in from the front of the car and caused the fuse to blow. The voltage drop caused the airbag controller to think that the car was in an accident and it tripped the safety terminal.

There's no way to replace just the terminal, so I have to replace the whole cable from the battery to the starter.

It's the only repair I've ever had to make to the car, so I'm not mad about the money. The job is going to suck though.

engineers are smart and that is cool... but those engineers aren't smart enough. Should have been a connector somewhere in line so just the end is replaceable, that is ridiculous. If I'd designed it, there would be an insulated stud / bulkhead a few feet up the cable with some ring terminals on it, and replacing the cable would take a couple minutes.

Engineers that come up with a good idea but make it too complicated or hard to work on just wreck things for the rest of us.

 

[macgyvr]

If Josh keeps having kids maybe his MINI might be forsale sooner rather than later

mac 'didn't realize that they had been around since 2003' gyvr

 

[vt98xj]

engineers are smart and that is cool... but those engineers aren't smart enough. Should have been a connector somewhere in line so just the end is replaceable, that is ridiculous. If I'd designed it, there would be an insulated stud / bulkhead a few feet up the cable with some ring terminals on it, and replacing the cable would take a couple minutes.

Engineers that come up with a good idea but make it too complicated or hard to work on just wreck things for the rest of us.

You have to remember that parts replacement can equal more profit then the car was new over the lifetime of the vehicle. Also more parts in a system equals a lot more cost for that system which means less initial profit.

That is why engineers do thing the way they do.

 

[VAhasnoWAVES]

Im so sick of people in my house!!! I have my best friend who's and idiot with two DUI's and no license, my sister in law and her boyfriend living there. Now here 40 year old mother couldn't pay her electric bill so she's there too, along with her stupid dog and my other two sister inlaws and the ones boyfriend!!!!!!! I come home and do dishes every fawking night after work that arent mine i am getting so irritated!!!!! It's causing a bunch of tension betweend me and Alexis and that pisses me off more than anything.

k "shitty day at work is gonna be a REAL shitty night at home" man

sounds like my college apartments... :dunno:

sounds like a PITA.

If he's not being an idiot, he can stay!

great input.

Came home to a basement with water in it, about 40 gallons and more coming...

Shut off the water to the water heater, salvaged what could be salvaged of boxes of stuff on the floor, and went shopping for a water heater.

Good Times

at least your a good sport. lol.

 

[Jeepm@n]

Came home to a basement with water in it, about 40 gallons and more coming...

Shut off the water to the water heater, salvaged what could be salvaged of boxes of stuff on the floor, and went shopping for a water heater.

Good Times

That sucks, being a homeowner can be a pita sometimes. Good luck with the clean up and repair. :thumbup:

 

[85xjwoody]

Many times I have wished for a basement under our house, but times like this is when I am GLAD I don't have a basement.

 

[ChiXJeff]

Actually...... mechanical spaces are a good thing. And pans under water heaters with drains are even better. I'd be more uncomfortable with a water heater in a finished space. Furnace, water heater, water softener and washer/dryer all clustered around a drain. And I hope when something springs a leak that it will drain and not overflow the threshold into the finished basement.

One of the things that I've gotten spoiled by are wire baker's racks, we've got 4 in the mechanical space, I've got 4 more for my computer crap, 1 in the attached garage and 5 in the man cave. Keeps stuff sort of organized and off the floor.

 

[SAMSET]

Came home to a basement with water in it, about 40 gallons and more coming...

Shut off the water to the water heater, salvaged what could be salvaged of boxes of stuff on the floor, and went shopping for a water heater.

Good Times

I came home to this a few years ago, nothing like getting off a long day of work on a Wednesday and having to clean up the basement then install a new water heater.

I waited until Saturday :wow:

SAM'3 cold showers'SET

 

[XJ&CHZ4ME]

I installed a floor drain in our basement due to leaky walls (house is 100 yrs old) and it was a PIA to put in, but no more worries of standing water down there. It used to have a sump pump, but it failed more then once and we had 2-3' of standing water once and a ruined HVAC unit....and insurance did not cover it, imagine that. A few hours with a concrete saw, jack hammer, and track hoe and we have it fixed. I ran the drain tile out 190' from the house at a 2% slope grade to ensure there was not any back up or problems in that department. When I poured the hunting cabin slab, I put in a floor drain in the mechanical closet so we can drain the water heater in the winter when no one is over there. Now I just ned to get some sheet rock up in teh next few weeks so Sean has a place to sleep at FestFest!! LOL

Cheese "wet and nasty" Man

 

[REWSTER]

My younger son turned 2 today!

getting old quick

 

[XJosh95]

For sure, man! Harrison is turning 1 in a month. Doesn't feel that long ago. Kinda scary.

 

[Fore Wheeler]

My younger son turned 2 today!

getting old quick

HBD to your boy!

arty:

Let me tell you about getting old...

Fore 'grandpa' Wheeler.

 

[85xjwoody]

And the swap has begun.

 

[kastein]

You have to remember that parts replacement can equal more profit then the car was new over the lifetime of the vehicle. Also more parts in a system equals a lot more cost for that system which means less initial profit.

That is why engineers do thing the way they do.

I don't think it'd be THAT much more to put one connector or stud/bolt halfway up the cable... IMO the bean counters won on that decision. Same as they won on the 97+ XJ by putting the FPR and the fuel filter into one unit, clipped to the top of the tank, where you have to drop the tank to replace it and pay $140+ at the dealer for the unit.

 

[ChiXJeff]

I don't think it'd be THAT much more to put one connector or stud/bolt halfway up the cable... IMO the bean counters won on that decision. Same as they won on the 97+ XJ by putting the FPR and the fuel filter into one unit, clipped to the top of the tank, where you have to drop the tank to replace it and pay $140+ at the dealer for the unit.

When I was working for USR/3Com, spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions in capital on manufacturing & testing equipment wasn't difficult. Adding a single 2 cent capacitor to a modem was a major war. Then again, when a single line was turning out finished modems every 6 seconds, and there were 8 parallel lines in that factory alone..... lessee.....that's over 115,000 modems in a day. An additional $10k to $20k in production costs, each and every day. It adds up in a hurry.

 

[macgyvr]

I came home to this a few years ago, nothing like getting off a long day of work on a Wednesday and having to clean up the basement then install a new water heater.

I waited until Saturday :wow:

SAM'3 cold showers'SET

Came home from Winterfest in 2009 and the water heater had sprung a leak in the top of it. Thankfully my brother was living with me (now I've related this post to two discussions at hand), and he called my dad who told him how to turn the water off.

My buddy came over and we swapped it that same day (Sunday), thank goodness for Lowe's.

The very next day the over payment on my prepaids on my mortgage (had bought my house almost 1 year before) came in the mail, it was almost the exact amount of the water heater.

mac 'sometimes it works out' gyvr

 

[SAMSET]

yea when i went shopping for a new one, they start telling me allllll about the sweet no water ones. saves you all kinds of money in the long run plus there was some kind of knock off taxes or something. thats all good when you have been saving and working towards a nice new one, but when it comes out of nowhere and just pops that 300 buxs is better than 1200.

 

[terrehautian]

I like the tankless heaters, they are great for a lot of people using hot water. On my first four mission trips, the shower trailer had one of those. Even with 20-40 people taking showers in a couple hour time period (six different shower stalls), they never ran out of water.

 

[ChiXJeff]

Tankless heaters work well if you use either a lot of hot water, or very little hot water. For those folks in the middle, traditional tank heaters, especially well insulated high efficiency models, can still be a good buy. I've looked into the tankless variety, under the assumption that the water heater in my house is on it's last legs, and I'm having a hard time making the numbers come out in my favor, even doing all of the install myself.

One cost that often gets overlooked for tankless heaters is the expensive exhaust/intake ductwork.