The Boiler Room

One water heater down, one to go.

Why would a house have two water heaters? Because they removed one.

Seriously, it used to have three water heaters: one upstairs (for the "civilian" quarters), one downstairs (for the restaurant), and a third, extra-hot, one for the restaurant dishwasher. That last one was removed before we bought the house, but the two main ones remained. In fact, they're both pretty new, having been replaced less than fives years ago.

The upstairs water heater was in the worst possible location, partially blocking a window and generally making a nuisance if itself in the laundry room. It also looked like it was plumbed in by drunken tree weasels using sticks and rocks. What a mess. It had every combination of galvanized pipe, copper pipe, flex tubing, hose cocks, and bubblegum imaginable. The proverbial plumber's nightmare. It was my least-favorite room in the house because I couldn't stand to look at the mess they'd made of it.

Today we (okay, the plumber) removed the upstairs water heater and jiggered the pipes to connect to the downstairs unit. It's a bit of a kludge, but it's temporary until we remove the second water heater, too, and plumb in the new tankless unit. That should serve the whole house and, as an added bonus, it'll sit under the crawlspace and be invisible. I love modern technology.