An agreed on price before starting should solve your concurns. You did your own diagnostics with help from the smart stat and State's customer service so I wouldn't know what caused the problem nor what will cure it. I don't see how properly replacing a t-stat could make the heater dangerous. I might consider a new t&p valve as well.

I think this is a good decision. I've been in the market for themostats, and I also decided to skip the smart thermostats and just get a programmable one. While many of the smart thermostat features sound slick, when we thought about it, we didn't think we'd end up using many of them. I was also concerned about cases when the wi-fi or electricity go out. And if a smart thermostat breaks, there are layers of troubleshooting involved. I liked the idea of setting the thermostat remotely, but honestly, my schedule is so predictable that a programmable will do just fine. Early on, I'd considered the ecobee, but I called their customer support with a pre-purchase question. I waited on hold for over an hour before I gave up. I took them off the candidate list right then and there. Had I already owned an ecobee and needed tech support, I would not have been happy being on hold for that long. I think in this case, less is more. If we are in the market for a thermostat in another several years, I may reconsider the smart thermostat as the market will have more maturity.

I have measured flows on my hand held shower head: max flow = 8.5 l/min, min flow = 5.6 l/min. (max flow=volume control all the way clockwise, min flow=volume control all the way counter-clockwise, flow reduction of 34%) Even with the hand held shower head removed (no restriction at all, free flow out of the hose) my min flow stayed about the same while max flow obviously have increased therefore bumping up flow reduction to something higher than 34%. Since my max flow is fine for me and I would like to see my min flow decreased, the solution of removing flow restrictor will not work for me. There is an option of adding flow restrictor to the Smart Control Cartridge which will reduce max flow, but it should hopefully also reduce min flow which I would like to see. I might try it, but it is a bit painful to disassemble the whole setup. Hoping this info helps someone.

trashcanman, I meant cat 6 obviously. I've had this argument further up on this thread (where I did say cat 6), but you just can't convince some people that technology improves/changes. "If you have neighbors close by, you are sharing that wireless space with them, and as they add more devices, your speed and reliability will trend downward". Just to reiterate, this is a dated way of thinking... there is very little to no interference with modern 5G routers. Anecdotal proof: I am sitting in my tiny temporary city apartment where there are 28 other wifi networks available, and I can still watch perfect 4K TV through my wifi and my internet is super fast. In 10-15 years, those of you running cat 6 will have to tell stories about the old days when the internet ran through wires and devices had these strange "ethernet ports" every time a kid asks about the strange useless outlets on your walls. artemis_ma, I did run audio wire for speakers.... even though Apple is convinced that wireless sound is ready for prime time, I don't think we are quite there yet. I think we will be soon, but I am not willing to wait a few years to listen to music (also speakers in the ceiling do need power some how). I am pretty happy with Spotify for what you are describing, but that is an entirely different conversation.