The $9,000 surprise that was actually 14 years in the making

Not really a horror story about a tenant or a scam, just a slow motion one about a water heater.

Bought a duplex a few years back, inspection said everything was "functional," which technically it was. What it didn't say was the water heater was already 11 years old. I filed that away and forgot about it, no percentage-based budget I was using flagged it as urgent since nothing was broken.

Three years later it failed on a Friday night, took out part of the flooring underneath it, and the total bill between replacement and water damage came to just over $9,000. In hindsight the system was never a mystery, it was 14 years old the day it finally gave out, right in line with what water heaters typically last.

The part that still bugs me isn't the cost, it's that the information to see it coming was sitting right there the whole time. I just wasn't tracking it against anything.

Anyone else have a "failure" that, looking back, was completely predictable once you knew the age of the thing?