insulate my water heater

This isn’t going well.

I’m probably not going to make my challenge, but I think I’ll spare myself because this is turning into a bigger project than originally expected.

Turns out my water heater is secured against the wall. Yeah, I thought I could just take off the earthquake straps and fit the insulation around. But it doesn’t fit between the heater and the wall. I have to MOVE the water heater at least 3 inches away from the wall. And of course moving the water heater means dealing with moving the flue and the 4 sets of pipes that go in and out of the damn thing. They’re all those bendy pipes (except for the flue) so it should be possible. But I’m going to find someone confident in their pipe adjusting ablities who is also strong enough to MOVE the thing.

Or, I try to insulate to just the edge where it meets the wall and lose heat in that one area. Have to do some research. My memory of thermo tells me that one opening in the insulation like that will decrease its effectiveness substantially. But maybe it will still be better than nothing.

I hate my water heater. I hate the people who built my house. I hate myself for buying this house without fully understanding how the water heater effected its resale value and rentablity!

Need to do this, definitely before fall and winter roll around. Should read up on it online somewhere, because I haven’t the faintest how to do it, especially because our water heater’s kind of hidden in a corner.