I Have Heat!

It was a humbling experience. What do I mean by that? Well, anytime you are shown that your suffering is from your own ignorance, you have to feel a bit humbled; at least a little less smart than you felt just before being shown how ignorant you were. That was what happened to me.
After all was said and done, I was without hot water for 11 days. I had heated water on the stove for the boys baths twice during that time. The rest of the time, luckily they were with grandparents or with Stacy. For myself, I had mainly showered at the gym. We managed but it sucked. Not only that but I was beginning to get pretty annoyed with the handling of the situation by Lowe's. The fact that they give the plumber a 48 hour window to schedule the inspection, and another 48 hours to turn the paper work in, in addition to the time between when the scheduled the inspection and the inspection date, is quite annoying. In the end, it was that other company's fault, but the time frame that Lowe's allows is a bit much in my opinion. Luckily they have wonderful people working there that I was able to discuss with and they made me feel better. That being said, I did end up leaving to buy from someone else.
After getting a few verbal quotes, I had one other company come out to give an official quote on replacing the unit. Before he gave the quote, I asked him to see if he could figure out what was wrong with it. When I found out the cause, I felt like an idiot. When I originally went out to relight the pilot light and failed, I did not fail due to a broken unit. I failed due to my ignorance on the product. It apparently has a safeguard that requires you shut off the gas completely, before you can turn it back on and light the pilot. Wow. I had messed with that thing for hours and had never turned it to the OFF position (which was not marked). He simply turned it off, waited 20 seconds, then lit the pilot. Finished. 11 days of no water and it was just the Pilot light. Wow.
I may have felt stupid, but one ignorant moment is way cheaper than replacing a hot water heater!