How Two Bolts Ruined a Day

Things weren't looking good for
our Water Heater at this point.

It's surprising how two bolts breaking can totally screw up your day.

Our electric water heater died. Specifically the element that does the actual heating failed and needed replacing.

The job is a relatively simple task. .Undo the four bolts holding in the old element, disconnect and remove, put in the new element, reconnect and you're good to go. Shouldn't take more than 30 minutes at most.

That's how I thought the day might go. Not for me personally but for the electrician our landlord hired to do the job.

Unfortunately, we're dealing with a 17 year old water heater that hasn't had any maintenance work in at least the two and a half years that I've lived in this house. Two of the four bolts broke off in the process of removing the old element.

If you've ever had this happen to you, you'll know removing broken bolts that are rusted in can be tricky at the best of times. Especially if you don't have the option to weld a new, make shift bolt head onto the remaining part of the bolt.

It may have been possible to fix the new element back in place with just two bolts had the snapped bolts been on opposite corners but since it was both the bottom bolts that snapped there wasn't enough force to maintain a seal around the element and stop the heater from leaking.

The Electrician, who had already come back from another job he attended whilst waiting for the WD-40 to take effect on the remaining three unsnapped bolts (the second one snapped at this point) proceeded to try everything he could to fix the leaking element plate. Presumably because the alternative appeared to be replacing the heater entirely.

Detail where the two, bottom
bolts are missing.

In a Herculean effort of drilling, trying various bolts, two or three trips to the hardware store (I presume), much swearing, a cut open hand, and with failing light he finally called it quits. At that point it looked kind of like he may have stopped the leak with a dubious center bottom bolt that he installed but I was pretty sure, once the water started heating up, it would leak again... and it did.

I kind of feel for the electrician. He didn't want to let those two broken bolts beat him. All he had to do was get the seal to not leak by some alternative method. How hard could it be...right?

Turns out, very hard. He probably should've given up after the first hour and resigned to the fact that a new water heater was the way to go. It was an option, as he'd already had the discussion with my landlord before he did anything.

I've since looked up on Youtube how to remove broken bolts and I'm not sure any of the techniques would've worked here. Maybe? Hard to tell with rusted in bolts. I'm sure the electrician probably tried at least a couple of methods - I don't know as I preferred to keep out of his way whilst he worked. I don't really have the tools to try myself.

Anyhow, he's supposed to head back today to see the results of his handiwork. I presume we'll end up with a new water heater.

Would have been much better all round if those two bolts hadn't broken.

Comments

What a Future with Flying Cars Might Look Like

Jetsons Style Flying Car - Image by TET & Leonardo.ai Regular readers of this blog will know that flying cars have been a recurring subject over the years. I even collected all my posts into a book you can buy on Amazon Kindle called Where's My Flying Car? The development of a true flying car is a fanciful one, largely because we've yet to come up with anything that actually looks like a car that flies. Most serious projects that even make it to a prototype are either small planes that compact into something you might drive from your home to an airport (if they don't have any vertical landing and take off (VTOL) capability) but you wouldn't drive to you local supermarket for the weekly groceries run, or they're some kind of drone/helicopter configuration with so many propellers you'll worry about shredding pedestrians who get too close. The dream is something that looks exactly like a car but can drive on a road, or hover (kind of like Luke Skywalker's ...

Review: ArtHelper - The All-In-One AI Writing + Marketing Assistant for Artists - 'ChatGPT for Artists'

ArtHelper prides itself on being all 'human-made' art. T he idea of an AI, trained specifically on art business marketing, that can not only offer advice on marketing your work, but also assist with creating all the content too, is certainly appealing. Especially to those of us who would rather spend more time creating our art than trying to sell it. ArtHelper does just that whilst attempting to be your 'home' on the internet. A destination for your profile and portfolio, a marketplace for your art, and a directory of artists as well, with one distinction - all the art must be human made. Which, for you AI artists, doesn't count the prompt for AI generated art - because the idea, according to ArtHelper's creators, isn't the art. Which is a fair point, in terms of promoting art 'made by a human', but can get kind of murky when you understand that not all AI art is generated from a single prompt... and 'found object art' isn't actually ...

New Cat Art Collaboration: TET's Cats Paintings and OpenArt AI Model Workspace (Photobooth)

TET's Cats AI generated art trained on my own art style. Way back in the early 2000's I started painting stylized cat artworks to illustrate some cat themed poems I'd written, that I exhibited and sold online in an exhibition titled 'Sleeping Cats' in 2004. You can see all these early works in my Flickr Album . Many are also available to buy as prints in my RedBubble Store . Leading on from that I began selling my paintings on ebay where the cat themed works were almost guaranteed to sell over any other subject I painted. As a result I became some what known for my cat art to the point where people would commission me to create images of their own pet cats in my cartoony style. Flash forward a decade (almost two at this point) and I haven't painted any cat themed art in years. To be honest I haven't done any traditional painting at all in years. In the last couple of years AI image generators have really caught my attention. Specifically that they are able t...

Is AI Art 'Art'? The Say NO to AI Art Movement, and Why Human Artists Will Adapt

AI Art No T-Shirt by TET Also available on other items . Right now there is a big debate over not just whether AI art is 'art' but whether AI's are actually ripping off the work of actual human artists, without their consent, to create their images - particularly images 'in the style of' specific artists. From my own observations this debate started to get more traction when artist's signatures began appearing in the output of AI Art image generators. Is It Art? Cool Froyd the Cat Sketch by TET. My style is very much influenced by classic Disney and WB character styles. To get some clarity on how real human artists work (of which I am one)... we, that is all of us... take influences from the art that has come before. i.e. whatever artists we like, have studied, seen etc. we are influenced by. It shows up in our work, intentionally or not. If you really study my own cartoony art style you'll see I'm heavily influenced by early Disney and Warner Bros cart...

TET Artwork Diary: Cats, Goats, and Battlestar Galactica's Cylon, Number Six

Y ou wouldn't know it from this blog, where I reference it a handful of posts , but I am a big fan of the rebooted 2003 Battlestar Galactica Series . Which is how I come to be Facebook following the series most recognised Cylon, Six - well the actress who plays six anyway, Tricia Helfer . One thing you'll learn pretty quickly about Tricia is that she owns a lot of rescue cats - and that she's more at home being a farm/country girl, surrounding herself with animals than she is living in cities - though she definitely seems to drift between the two worlds with ease. Cats and Goats Tricia with Larry and Earl. Still from Tricia Helfer's FB Video . However, this is a blog post about a cat and goats, specifically Trica's Goats, Larry and Earl, that currently live at the Farm of the Free . She posted a video of herself visiting them on her Facebook . Click the link for the full video. Cat at Farm of the Free with Tricia, Larry, & Earl. Still from Tricia Helfer's F...

How to Transfer Any Line Art to Your Griptape - Easy Skateboard Griptape Art Tutorial

Dog Star Griptape Art by TET Griptape art is once again gaining popularity amongst modern skateboarders. For those of us who have tried to create our own griptape art, using paint pens, you'll know reproducing your design onto the grip, without making any mistakes is incredibly challenging. Mostly because you just have to go for it and draw the design freehand, with paint pens, directly onto the griptape. You can make the odd mistake here or there but if you get the proportions of the design completely wrong, it can be very difficult to fix. Often you just have to live with the mistake. To address the problem I've come up with an easy way anyone can transfer a line art design to their griptape, removing almost all the anxiety of getting the proportions wrong. In fact, you could do this with any line art design, even if you have no drawing skill at all. Watch the video below to see my technique in action and/or skip past the video where I highlight the basic steps to get your de...

Two night Stay Glenelg, South Australia - Glenelg Motel, Beach Front, Cafe Strip/Jetty Road, and Evening Temptation Twilight Cruise

The Glenelg Giant Wheel. T he Glenelg foreshore and Cafe/Shopping strip (Jetty Road) at the end of the tramline from Adelaide, South Australia is arguably one of the must visit tourist regions of the city. It particularly has a lot to offer families with, not just the beach, but quite a number of playgrounds and grassed reserves as well. My partner booked us a post weekend, two night (Sunday and Monday), getaway in Glenelg by way of some discount vouchers she secured as part of a promotion encouraging people to visit the region over the Summer. Glenelg Motel The recently refurbished rooms of the Glenelg Motel raise your expectations from what the exterior of the rooms themselves suggest, which is a very 1970's vibe of your standard motel with parking right outside your front door (and not much else). Our room was spacious, and the modern furnishings were easily to the standards of any hotel we've stayed in over the last few years. The rooms look very modern with everything you...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog