There is always a divide, whether intended or not, between what is dreamed and what is real.

We have an X0 year old 65 gallon water heater, and it’s been pretty reliable since we moved into our home in 2007.

Yesterday it broke. Rather amusing in retrospect – I started my shower, and slightly frustrated with the heat level kept raising it ’till it was at full. To no avail! So, one cold shower later, I turn it off hoping that there’s just something wrong with the diverter for my shower only. Kelly starts her shower. Stops 30 seconds later and tries again. Stops 30 seconds later and comes to ask me about it. “Oh, I guess that issue is system-wide!”

Stroll downstairs and wake my mother (who lives in the room with water heater access). Keep in mind, this is all happening before 5am. Her eBay business has essentially exploded all over her room, so we spend five minutes moving boxes of books and DVDs out of the way so we can get in the water heater closet. Slight leakage, but that’s from the condensation pipe, so whatever. We run some “hot” water, and with my hand on the pipe I can tell the water’s going through the heater, but the pipe is only lukewarm.

We knew it would happen. Sooner or later. We’d hoped, ya know, later. When we had the time and money to expand the downstairs bathroom into the water heater closet. See, we have dreams. Dreams of making our house even more awesome than it already is. Like…

• extending the kitchen area into the deck area
• building a new master suite with a balcony above our ground floor
• landscaping, including water features, fire pit, play area, privacy screening
• finishing the garage, new garage doors
• replacing electric tank heater with gas tankless and moving to furnace room
• including water heater room into larger downstairs bath

These are the dreams. What’s the reality?

• the roof we put on right before I got laid off in ’08
• pregnancy costs for Little Dude
• Celica and Nissan dying in the same year, replacing with Jetta
• yearly “WTF” fix-it costs for the Exploder
• new siding at some point in the near future
• removal of dying trees, pruning of healthy but possibly dangerous trees
• cheap electric tank heater so we can get hot water now!

I won’t even get into the BofA fiasco with our mortgage. That’s for another rant. So yeah – we looked at all the various options. Gas tankless. Electric tankless. Regular electric tank. Gas tank. Hybrid heat pump tank. Issues with any tank type? Generally has to stay in current water heater closet. Issues with tankless? Evidently they pulse their heat. Which would be annoying, especially to someone like my darling wife who finds it rather easy to become annoyed. Hybrid heat pump? Not enough reviews and testimonials to really trust. Although it sounds awesome. Electric tankless? Upgrade our breaker box. Gas tankless? Upgrade our gas line.

So, looking at finances… and knowing that we’re trying for Littler Dude(tte)… and that we have to remove dying trees… we’re going with the “cheap for now” option. A middle of the road water heater is still loads more efficient than the one we have now, and we don’t have to do anything to the house.

And the dreams just sluice off of me like cold water. In a cold shower.