Why would they do that??

If you remember a few weeks ago when we were having our playroom floors re-done, the hot water heater in the basement sprung a leak. The thing was 30 plus years old, so that was no big shock to us. However I forgot to share the fact that they actually built the walls of the little utility room in the basement around the hot water heater and furnace. Kirk had to tear down a portion of the wall to get to the stupid thing. We ended up trading out the 30 gallon one for a 50 gallon one. Now I have a basement with a 3 foot section of the utility wall totally missing. Not even sure how we will be able to replace it, since Kirk had to take a saw to the supporting braces that run along the wall to be able to get the hot water heater to remove it. Why would you build a wall around something that will eventually have to be replaced, that can malfunction or have a variety of other issues. Got to love the quirks of older homes.