Silence, but reasons

I haven’t wrote here for a while, and it’s been highly frustrating. But there have been many reasons as to why. Something happened with my word press installation, making posting all but impossible.

Spring has brought upon me the urge to do the projects I have put off for too long. The first of which, my kitchen faucet. My girlfriend and my daughter were the loudest voices in their disdain for it. I won’t lie, it should have been replaced years ago. It leaked each time the water was turned on and the sprayer hose leaked as well.

I’m not a fan of how kitchen faucets are designed now, so I found one with the qualities I liked, bought it and installed it within a day. Boom, done. Or I thought. I got some comments from my girlfriends father, and her on how I should add a filtration system under the sink so I could get rid of my on sink Pur filter. I’ve never found an issue with the water quality, but the girlfriend and youngest daughter do. So I then ordered a 3 stage system, and am waiting on it to be delivered.

Then, I decided to use my 2021 Stimulus payment in a smart way. I purchased a hybrid water heater. It’s Energy Star certified, uses 1/3 of the energy my former one does, will net me a $500 rebate from my electric company, and net me a $300 tax credit next year! The rebate and tax credit pay for half of it alone.

Richmond Encore Series Hybrid Electric Water Heater

Plumbing isn’t one of my strong suits, but I can get the job done. The manual actually stated not to use plastic or copper hard line to connect and instead recommended PEX. A combination of me being stubborn and unwilling to buy the special tool required for PEX left me doing it this way.

I had the lines blow apart on me three times, flooding my basement. That however isn’t my first rodeo.

To show a comparison of energy consumption between the models, here’s a image of my old unit’s yellow tag:

Here is the yellow tag of the new one:

Large difference isn’t it? With my girlfriend and her kids now staying with my full time, keeping us comfortable while also keeping my bills as low as I can have been paramount. This has a bit of IOT built into it, with an app that lets you schedule and control which mode it uses. There are five modes that can be used, Energy Saver, Heat Pump, High Demand, Electric and Vacation.