So, just to follow up...

On my latest adventure in home repair, there were... not surprisingly... a couple of flies in the ointment.

When I went to remove the lower element from the water heater... it was so badly corroded it simply cracked and butterflied... inside the tank.

This also happened the last time I did this job and I was able to brute-force it out... but this time the element actually broke off as I was reefing on it... and for a second there, I thought it was irretrievably lost inside the tank and I was into a new water heater.

Fortunately, the thin wire heating element was still intact, so I was able to reel in the corroded, splayed remnant to the access hole to grab it. The hole though is only 2 inches in diameter, which doesn't give you a whole lot of tool options.

I ended up having to head to a local retail outlet to pick up a set of needle-nose vise grips (the only robust gripper that had a chance of fitting through the small hole) and after another 40 minutes of tugging, crushing and manipulating... finally extricated the rest of the element.

The moral of the story... I suppose... is never give up.

Kinda like right here.

*