The Ripple Effect: A Classic Case Study

I’m sure you’ve heard of the “Ripple Effect”- one little thing, like a pebble on a pond, causing reverberations that grow and spread into something far bigger.I have just experienced what I hope is the final chapter of a classic Ripple Effect – here’s the chain:

• Sometime in 1999, a water heater is manufactured in some foreign country – the person building it makes a tiny mistake while attaching a vent and leaves a pin-hole sized dent in the vent.
• This water heater is installed in a new house in 2000
• The water heater functions normally for the original house owners, but that dent begins to rust and deteriorate
• Yours truly buys said house in early 2006
• The little pin-hole rusts through in December 2006, causing water to enter the vent
• Yours truly awakens one December morning to a flooded basement caused by the pin-hole leak (click here for the whole story)
• Our plumber replaces the damaged water heater with a new one that day
• One month later one-half of our basement floor is replaced; and my wife and I repaint walls and trim
• In early 2007 we receive our “final” insurance settlement on the basement damage
• Later that month of January 2007 the temperature of our hot water begins to deteriorate – we respond by turning up the thermostat
• In February 2007 we continue to lament having only warm, but not hot, water. I examine the new water heater but see no apparent problems, but do detect a faint odor.
• Finally in mid-March 2007 we no longer get any hot water; we summon the plumber to investigate
• Yesterday, the plumber arrives and discovers a ton of soot inside the burner of the water heater
• The plumber decides we don’t have enough “combustible” air to get a good flame, so he convinces us to cut a hole in the wall of the boiler room – we decide to wait on that one until we can investigate further
• Meantime, we attempt to clean out the soot from the heater – big mistake. The shop-vac we were using spewed soot into the air, covering our entire (new) basement floor
• The plumber tries to re-start the water heater sans (some) soot and the same problem ensues – the flame starts, but then stops.
• My wife and I begin the long soot clean-up process while the plumber tries to figure out the problem
• Whilst we are on our hands and knees cleaning, the plumber utters these immortal words – “Oh my God“
• Turns out, when they installed the new water heater, they installed a natural gas heater. Problem is, we have Propane gas feeding the house. Ooops.
• Plumber immediately takes action to get a proper water heater that takes propane gas
• 4 Hours later we have yet another new water heater installed, and we finally have piping hot water again
• 4 Hours after that we’re still cleaning up all the soot that we never had to disturb in the first place if we had figured out the real problem sooner
• As we dine last night after all this happens, we thank our lucky stars that nothing really, really bad happened because of the heater mix-up (that’s the Half-Fuller in me).

All this, caused by one second of carelessness in 1999. Ripple indeed!

Is this ripple finally over? Gosh I hope so.

I do realize this, however – this is is yet another great example of how we should never discount those little things, those little steps we take, and the large “ripples” they could eventually have in our lives.

A great lesson, this time from a water heater. I’ll never look at one the same way again!

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