water heater drain pan: best. present. ever.
We came home from Christmas travels to find our water heater leaking from two places. That was not much of a Christmas present. The $20 water heater pan that caught all the water and emptied it into the floor drain and away from the carpet and storage closet? The best. We installed it after the hot water heater failed three months after we moved into this house. I’m not sure how practical it is to install one under an existing water heater, but if you are buying/building/replacing anyway/live with a plumber, it’s worth looking into. (In 14 years and two houses, we replaced a whopping four water heaters — make that five now — and only had the pan this last time.) Now that Sears has replaced our just barely-under-warranty heater, a hot bath is in order. If the soaps at Highland Soap are half as lovely as their site, it will have been worth the two-day wait. Almost. — Sarah L.
Ouch, it is indeedly very important to chooce a high quality water heater. Specially if you are going to pick an electric tankless water heater. Hopefully you got a good one this time. :-)
Back in the olden days, which I remember, you could buy a water heater that would last 15 years or more. Now when you buy a water heater you get one designed to last 6 years at the most. We put in that pan under the water heater and I think it should be standard equipment on houses all over the country. Another thing to look at is the heavy duty hoses that feed into your washing machine. I know people who have had to rebuild their whole houses because those things blew and flooded the whole house. I think there should be something like this also for dishwashers. when we moved into our house, the dishwasher had three cups underneath to catch the drips.