What a week it’s been in the “House of Brown”. Every week has it challenges, and this week brought us into uncharted territory.
This uncharted territory consisted of the water heater finally tapping out and refusing to provide our humble abode with something we all take for granted until we don’t have it: hot water. ?
That happened on Tuesday afternoon. I hesitated calling a plumbing company because often times my handiness tends to resurrect life into things around the house attempting to give out.
What made this water heater more trickier than the rest is that it’s a natural gas water heater. Anyone that knows me knows that I’ll mess with many things, but me and natural gas don’t go together (no pun intended). ?
I attempted to re-light the pilot late Tuesday evening after arriving home from the office, but no can do. I was hoping for a seamless pilot repair until I realized the water heater was nearly 11 or 12 years old.
In fact, I’m certain it was old because we’ve been in this home nearly 10, and the house was vacant 1-2 years prior to use moving in and rehabbing it.
Nevertheless, it was time to locate a plumber early Wednesday, having conceded to the thought of blowing up our house attempting to replace a natural gas water heater and knowing Austin is strict when it comes to enforcing and mandating code compliance.
I could have replaced it. Then again, I run the risk of not being able to sale the house in the future due to ill-advised or non-compliance to permitted the water heater according to Austin’s Code Compliance. Oh well…
Seeing I was in hot water because of not having hot water, I contemplated who I could call to remedy this situation and in short order. ?
It didn’t take long that my mind recalled a company I encounter 2-3 times per week on my 3-minute commute from house to office, and back.
I often encounter this company gassing up a number of their trucks as shown below the day I pulled into the gas station to top off my ole’ daily driver, 1977 Chevrolet Caprice Classic.
The images above were taken last July. Yes, you ought to know by now that I live to take pictures of domain names. I love seeing a good, bad, and ugly domain name, as they give me things to ponder and discuss as it correlates to business. ?
Nevertheless, my mind instantly remembered this company even though I see a few others in addition to theirs. Why did I remember this company? Yes, because of its domain name: AustinTexasWaterHeaters.com.
Talk about a good geo service domain to build and brand your company specializing in water heater services, especially here in the fast-growing greater Austin metroplex.
And yes, I did perform a bulk search to see what other variations were available or registered pertaining to “Austin Texas Water Heaters”.
I searched and found the following for geo service and brandable domains (* denotes available for registration at the time of this writing):
- ATXWaterHeater.com*
- ATXWaterHeaters.com*
- AustinTxWaterHeaters.com*
- AustinWaterHeaters.com
- WaterHeaterPros.com
- WaterHeaterExperts.com
- WaterHeaterRepair.com
If I were the owner, general manager or marketing personnel of Texas Water Heaters, I would secure both ATXWaterHeater(s).com in a heartbeat based on the following reasons:
First, both domains are shorter than spelling out “Austin Texas” by more than a few keystrokes.
Second, “ATX” is a common abbreviation that most Austin-based businesses are using to brand and represent their business in a fast-growing, competitive landscape.
Third and finally, secure your brand from competitors attempting to encroach and capitalize on the goodwill of all the marketing dollars and effort invested to establish your company.
Moving down the list, what’s more interesting to me is that AustinWaterHeaters.com (prime digital real estate and my favorite for geo service domains for this category) resolves to a website spewing WordPress PHP errors. Talk about a waste of good domain real estate and business opportunity. ?
Seeing the company is name “Texas Water Heaters”, I then searched for TexasWaterHeaters.com and TexasWaterHeater.com. Based on the image below, it appears that someone has allowed TexasWaterHeater.com to expire. Ruh roh? ?
As for TexasWaterHeaters.com, it too is being wasted by resolving to page that simply states the site is not currently available. Talk about missed opportunity. ? I really like this domain too, more so than the singular .com version.
Nevertheless, I cracked open a browser, visited AustinTexasWaterHeaters.com, and called to secure my install date. Unfortunately, because this seems to be a busy time of the year for water heater specialists, they were not able to schedule us until Thursday.
Well, Thursday arrived and the Texas Water Heaters crew showed up on time and expeditiously handled their business with care. All went well with removal of the old water heater and install of the new.
Of course, a new water heater cost a pretty penny, but it was money well spent. It feels good to be out of the proverbial “hot water” with my family, and back to warm showers, clean clothes, and sterilized dishes. ???
And I hope it remains that way for the next 10-15 years until time to do it all over again. That’s all for now!
As a domain investor and business consultant, Alvin actively participates in daily domain auctions. Outside of auctions, he passionately shares his views, opinions, and vision for how businesses should and should not use domain names to generate greater customer growth and revenue.
