JoeWras
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2012
- Messages
- 11,718
I had one that was really hard to figure out for a long time in my water heater.
Somewhere in the bottom a leak started inside, where it would basically drip into the 'combustion' area (natural gas heater). Basically, the leak was converted to steam and went out the flue pipe area.
Eventually I figured it out when all my metal stuff in the garage started developing a patina of rust on anything not painted.
I wonder if that's what happened to my latest WH? My detector went off, and the pan was starting to fill and drain out. I arranged for a replacement, which occurred 8 days later. But after day 2, the leak stopped. When the leak was occurring, I checked the T&P valve, the inlet/outlet, and the drain valve. All dry. It was dropping from the bottom. Maybe there was a pinhole in a side-seam (flowing internally down the insulation) or the bottom. Who knows. I figured the pin-hole self-healed due to some sediment. But it might have also just slowed and was being burned off. My basement garage was feeling really hot and humid. After replacement, it is now a "dry heat," which everyone knows is OK.
In any case, I feel that the detector gave me a good head's up on this problem. Don't mess with intermittents. Cut it off before the "whole bottom blows out" which as seen above, is very possible.
I could be wrong, but I think this detector saved me a lot of future pain because it caught the intermittent early.
One last thing about water heater tanks. I was a bad handy-man on this one and didn't do maintenance. I lost track during a time when both me and my parents had health issues. By the time I realized I let maintenance go, it was 7 years or so. This is a case of "don't poke the sleeping bear." I just didn't mess with it because sometimes you cause issues if you decide to drain sediment or replace anodes 7 years into a WH life.
I have posted a maintenance schedule on my new WH and will follow it religiously, including anode replacement. BTW, my home setup is not good for tankless so I'm sticking with the tank.
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