How I saved some money during the Circuit Breaker period

The 2 instant water heater for shower room at home turned 10 years old recently. My wife has been complaining about the low water pressure coming out from them and asking me to replace them for a while now. I was googling on suitable replacement for them but couldn't really find the time to compare and finalized on a good one.

After the Circuit Breaker (CB) kicking in last week, I finally get the time to clear off some of my "household backlog". In fact I have so much time on hand that instead of trying to find a suitable instant water heater online, I disassemble my current one to see what's causing the water pressure to be so much lower than I first bought it 10 years ago.

After some loosening of screws and detective work, I found that there is a flow control valve in the instant heater that is causing the water pressure to be so low. With the time on hand, I didn't stop there. I disassemble the control valves to see why is it restricting the flow. After some more probing, I found that the valve needle, made of plastic, had swollen after 10 years of being soaked in water. Fortunately, I can just remove that needle to remove the restriction. I lost the flow control ability on the water heater with that removal but I didn't need that anyways. It was always on max flow. Some photos of the valve being taken apart below.

So after spending about 2 hours to troubleshoot and fix the 2 instant water heater, I managed to save on 2 new water heater which works out to be about S$500 worth of savings. That is another $500 going into my war chest. Not bad for 2 hours of work.

On top of the savings, I guess it is also environmentally friend to not just throw away 2 otherwise good instant water heater.

On to the next project this coming weekend………

Happy Value Investing