What if your water stopped flowing overnight—not because of a burst pipe, but because a $90 hose froze solid and starved your livestock, your RV, or your cabin heater? I rolled up to a Wyoming ranch at 6 a.m. last January to find 200 head of cattle circling a dry trough; the culprit was a … Read more

At 2 AM on a Tuesday, my phone rang. It was a panicked homeowner, and I could hear water rushing in the background. We were their last hope. The Bradford White RG240T6N had split at the tank seam, soaking the finished basement. By 3:15 AM I had the gas cock off, the cold-water gate valve … Read more

The call always comes on a Sunday: no hot water, a puddle under the tank, or a sudden jet-engine roar from the utility closet. After major storms, contractors are flooded with calls. But the most critical step isn’t the repair itself; it’s the assessment you do before anyone even shows up. I tell homeowners to … Read more

During a winter remodel in 2019, I opened the utility closet of a 2012 Richmond 40-gal gas unit and smelled the tell-tale rotten-egg odor. The homeowner had 48 h before drywall closed forever—miss the swap and the tank would rot from the inside until it leaked in 2026. I cut the copper, pulled the hex … Read more

How can two houses on the same street, built by the same builder, have such radically different issues ten years later? The divergence point is often a single, small choice. One homeowner chose electric for their water heater—convenient, quiet, but dependent on grid stability. The other picked a propane water heater. When the ice storm … Read more

During a routine inspection in a beautiful, million-dollar home, I moved a piece of insulation and found something that made my blood run cold. The copper flex line feeding the bathroom sink had been jury-rigged to a $79 Amazon coil heater—no T&P valve, no GFCI, just 1,500 W of raw heat taped to wood framing. … Read more

When I started working with historic homes, I quickly realized that modern solutions often create more problems than they solve. That’s when I began to specialize in integrating high-efficiency systems into period properties without compromising their integrity. Retrofitting old plumbing with bulky storage tanks led to space issues, mold risks, and energy waste—especially in Boston’s … Read more

In 15 years of installations, I’ve seen that nearly 80% of emergency service calls are for issues that could have been prevented with a simple, annual maintenance check. One winter, a family in suburban Ohio woke up to no hot water—because their natural gas water heater’s pilot light had gone out from a clogged vent. … Read more

After the third callback on a warranty job in Naples, I stopped blaming the manufacturer. The homeowner’s “solar hot water heater” was pumping 180 °F liquid through plastic PEX because a $0.50 check-valve was in backward. One Sunday of reversed flow erased every dollar he’d saved in the previous year. The lesson? A solar hot … Read more

Every winter, without fail, we get a wave of calls for the exact same, preventable issue. Freezing temps hit, and homeowners with standard tank systems wake up to icy showers and flooded basements from burst pipes. I’ve answered over 300 emergency service calls in the past decade alone—all avoidable. Popular Propane Tankless Water Heater Options … Read more