8 responses to “Gas Water Heaters: Common sense missing”

1. Peter Garrison

   July 8, 2026

   Let’s see about enforcement of the leaf blower ban first.

2. Handle Bard

   July 9, 2026

   They lecture from the marble hall,
   With solemn voice and measured pride:
   “The planet’s fate depends upon
   The heater by your home’s backside.”

   They count the flames that briefly bloom
   Beneath a family’s evening shower,
   As though those modest moments hold
   The balance of Earth’s future power.

   So outlaw pipes and pilot lights,
   Proclaim another household sin;
   Declare that virtue now resides
   In what appliances live within.

   Meanwhile, beyond the western sea,
   The smokestacks rise in endless rows,
   Where coal fires burn through day and night,
   And every season’s furnace glows.

   Gigawatts by the hundreds come,
   Year after year, with steady pace
   A river of unceasing flame,
   Untroubled by a sermon’s grace.

   The irony is hard to miss—
   A candle blamed beside the sun;
   A teaspoon tossed against the tide,
   Then praised because the deed is done.

   For wisdom weighs both scale and cost,
   And asks what truly moves the scale
   It does not crown symbolic acts
   While larger reckonings all sail.

   If sacrifice is truly due,
   Let honesty attend the plea:
   The world is changed by what is vast,
   Not merely what is easy to see.

   So spare us not from common sense,
   Nor dress small gestures up as fate;
   A policy that shuns proportion
   Is little more than polished weight.

   For truth cares little whom it serves—
   The left, the right, the weak, the strong.
   Arithmetic remains unmoved,
   Though speeches thunder loud and long.

3. Phinancier

   July 9, 2026

   From July 2nd and lost in the pre-holiday bustling. WASHINGTON—U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright today announced the Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to permanently end home appliance and equipment mandates that raise costs and disrupt consumer choice. The proposal will update the Department’s Process Rule used to establish energy conservation standards for household appliances and equipment, including air conditioning units, gas stoves, washing and drying machines, water heaters, refrigerators, and other products Americans rely on every day.

4. Concerned in Burlingame

   July 13, 2026

   I met with two plumbing companies this morning for estimates on the proactive replacement of my almost ten year old gas tank water heater prior to the new year end restrictions are in place.
   I discussed gas tank, on demand gas tankless and heat pump options.
   While they recommend a gas tank replacement (with one offering a 12 year warranty option) they also like on demand units, although they are much more costly initially.
   They were both very negative on electric heat pump units as being very costly, even before any required electrical upgrades. Their clients have been very unhappy with the long required delays in tank temperature recovery times with these units.
   One even predicted that the new regulations will be reversed when public outcry builds from the tremendous increased costs and ineffectiveness of the electric units becomes more widely known.

5. Not Just DIY

   July 13, 2026

   I got some similar answers as I was looking at an early replacement. I do like the 12 year warranty idea but it begs the question of replacing the dead heater with what in 2036 if they don’t come to their senses?

6. Paloma Ave

   July 13, 2026

   In the old days, gas water heaters were lined with copper. I had run across water heaters that were 60, 70 and 80 years old! The industry must have gotten together and decided to make water heaters, lined with glass, that would only last six to ten years. It is known as “Planned obsolesce”. This way we would continue buying more water heaters. Isn’t industry wonderful?

7. Get Lost

   July 18, 2026

   Let me get this straight. Because some climate alarmist thinks my water heater will have any effect on the world climate they think they can void a legal contract between me and a plumbing company offering me a 10 year warranty on a new unit? Do I have that right?

   Meanwhile Canadian wildfires are spewing smoke and ash from Minnesota to North Carolina just like we had a couple years ago. Do I have that right?

8. Handle Bard

   July 18, 2026

   No funny ChatGPT slop on this!

   Canada’s four straight years of record-breaking wildfires have emitted at least 800M metric total tons of carbon, now an annual public health crisis that’s wiped out the liberal government’s climate mandates including net zero powerplants, vehicle emission standards, and federal carbon pricing. Dangerous smoke now blankets 23 U.S. states and D.C. with dangerous particulates and toxins including toluene, xylenes, benzenes, and formaldehyde. Particulate pollution triggers strokes, heart attacks and asthma attacks.

   Senator Bernie Moreno to introduce a sanctions bill against Canadian officials to revoke their visas and block their assets. U.S. lawmakers demand Canada stop its policy choice of failing to manage its forests now annually exploding into uncontrollable fires. Americans are now forced to yearly breathe its hazardous smoke.