To avoid dumb mistakes, after shutting the electricity off, I like to shut the whole house's water off, in addition to the valve leading to the water tank. However, if you have other heaters that rely on water, review this step carefullly, as shutting water off before disconnecting the power to a heater, can burn it out. Surprisingly, many homeowners do not even know where their main house water shutoff is. Mine is located in this cool, old room that use to be for storing coal to heat the house (thusly the sloped sides, to make it easier to shovel the coal). Please...make it a point to know where to shut your main water off. It could save all those photographs you cherish so much that are stored in your basement, should a pipe ever burst! If soldering hates anything, it's water, and if so much as a small amount of dripping gets into your solder joints while you are soldering, you might as well be asking Ghadafi to leave Libya, as to ask the solder to take!

My review board is tomorrow and all I wanna do is sleep. I'm tired and ready for all this to be over. I look horrible and our shower isn't working because our water heater is dead. URGH!