PDA

View Full Version : Water heater leaking - question



Tom Jones III
07-12-2006, 8:47 AM
LOML called me at the office this morning to say that the water heater is leaking. She said it is a very slow drip and the pan with a drain is easily keeping up with it. Unfortunately we've got commitments which will keep us both busy until Sat.

Does anyone have experience with leaking water heaters? Is this something that I've got to replace ASAP or can it wait 3 days? My choices are pay $300 for installation today/tomorrow, or install it myself Sat morning, or install it myself tonight starting at 9 PM. What would you do? BTW, the water heater is in the attic over the second floor so a complete failure would be terrible.

Ken Fitzgerald
07-12-2006, 9:02 AM
BTW, the water heater is in the attic over the second floor so a complete failure would be terrible.

Tom.........I've experienced two types of failures on water heaters that resulted in leaks. (1)The pressure valve on the side developed a leak. I was able to replace the valve on that one. (2) The bottom fell out of a gas water heater that we had. The only good news about #2 is that it was in an unfinished (at the time) basement. Based on what you stated above, I wouldn't let it go until the weekend. JMHO .............

Kyle Kraft
07-12-2006, 9:05 AM
First of all a disclaimer: All advise in the following post is to be used at the readers own risk. I would not worry about the water heater before Saturday. I have never seen a catastrophic water heater failure yet. Usually the bottom of the tank is so full of lime scale that it could drip at a very slow rate for months. Sounds like you have it in a catch basin with a drain, probably 1 1/2" pvc to your sewer or septic. This will handle any leakage short of a sidewall blowout.

Save the $300 for WW toys.

Lee Schierer
07-12-2006, 9:05 AM
My experience is that water heater leaks do not get better with time. They don't always change quickly. Can you stand not having hot water until Saturday? One solution would be to turn off the power/gas and the water to the tank. If you relieve the pressure, teh leak shouldn't get any worse between now and saturday.

Bob Childress
07-12-2006, 9:08 AM
Having said that, I have had experience of leaking water heaters in several different houses. If the leak is slow and small, you will probably be all right until Saturday. It may already have been leaking for a while.

How did your wife discover the leak? Did she go in the attic or did something leak onto your ceiling? There should be more than just a pan if the WH is in the attic. It should have a drain to the outside of the house to prevent the catastrophe.

Whatever you do, don't shake or push on the WH unless you're ready to get it out of there right then. These slow leaks are often "slow" because a lot of gunk is sort of sealing the bad place and moving the WH might unstick the gunk (how's that for a technical explanation?).:D

If it were me, I'd wait until Saturday. (Insert disclaimer at this point.)

Frank Fusco
07-12-2006, 9:57 AM
As said, they don't fix themselves. Best to shut off and replace ASAP. We replaced our with a Marathon from the local electric company. Most energy efficient heater around, according to them. We pay $11.00 a month on a lease basis and they fix/replace forever if anything goes wrong. Can also be purchased. Our previous 'new' one went south after only two years. It was a GE, and rots of ruck getting warranty service from them, dealer wouldn't honor if GE wouldn't honor.

Tom Jones III
07-12-2006, 10:33 AM
According to LOML she thinks that it is a rust spot that is leaking near the bottom. I know that there is a pan under the heater with a pvc pipe that leads down the outer wall and empties onto our driveway. LOML noticed the leak because she saw the water on the driveway. The pan and drain will keep up with a small leak but would never keep up with a large hole -- i.e. you could not drain the entire heater using the pan to handle all the water.

The biggest problem with replacing the water heater is due to the schedule, I assume that I will have a hard time carrying a 40 gal. gas heater up the stairs then up the attic stairs all by myself?

Jeremy Gibson
07-12-2006, 10:37 AM
I've replaced two water heaters in the two houses I've owned (first home and current home). It's certainly not a technically difficult job, just a bit of muscle and soddering. The first one was gas and just stopped working. The second was electric and we noticed magic blue smoke smell in the laundry room one day. The power went off immediately and we were on the way to the Borg.

That being said, I wish the last time I had taken it as an opportunity to upgrade to an instant hot water heater. They cost more, but you don't have to pay to heat the tank 24 hours a day and it won't run out of hot if you shower and wash dishes and wash clothes at the same time.

I would probably give in 24 hours to see if the leak gets worse. If not, then wait until Sat, but still monitor the leak daily. If it is getting worse then it's time for a faster replacement. (just my opinion, I'm not a pro)

Tom Jones III
07-12-2006, 11:08 AM
Tankless would only cost me $999 or $700 after rebate, traditional heater will cost $400. The advert. for the tankless says I'll save 30% in fuel costs. Best of all, they advertise that it will work for 20 years or more which means I'll probably never have to change it again. But I have no idea how far the marketing claims are stretching the truth.

Mostly I'm worried about maintenance. Searches on this forum leave that as my only real concern. The tankless should far exceed my capacity needs. The borg has a tankless that has 10 Year limited warranty on heat exchanger, 3 Year limited warranty on parts. The company is Paloma.

http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS/EN_US/diy_main/pg_diy.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1673045765.1152715676@ @@@&BV_EngineID=cchdaddifjmlgdfcgelceffdfgidgin.0&CNTTYPE=PROD_META&CNTKEY=misc/searchResults.jsp&MID=9876&N=2984+4370&pos=n08

Karl Laustrup
07-12-2006, 12:19 PM
Check out this web site for Rinnai tankless water heaters. http://www.foreverhotwater.com/

This is the brand I had installed in our new house. I think a 25% savings would be more in line than the 30% shown by HD. I don't know anything about the HD unit, but I know I'm happy with my Rinnai. I don't recall what the unit and installation cost, but I'm pretty sure it was more than HD is listing theirs at.

I'm not sure about the installation of the HD unit, but the Rinnai should be installed by a plumber licensed by Rinnai. They are more complicated to install than a regular tank type water heater.

IMHO if you can swing the extra money up front, I think one of these units will more than pay for itself in the long haul.

Karl

Doug Shepard
07-12-2006, 1:34 PM
If you can do without hot water for a few days I'd get it shut down and get a hose hooked up to it to drain the tank. You can always fill it back up to test the source of the leak Saturday, but if it turns into a full blown leak, having that thing empty on you while you're not home isn't something you want to risk.

Doyle Alley
07-12-2006, 2:10 PM
I can't tell you WHEN you need to replace it, but I can offer one very small piece of advice for what not to do while your are putting it in. DON'T assume that the idiots that built or inspected the new water heater actually tightened up the inlet and outlet pipes correctly. I put in a new GE water heater (I know, first mistake was buying anything made by GE. I should have known better by past experience). After soldering the pipes, I started filling it with water and heard a hissing sound. To make sure it wasn't just the relieve valve or the sound of air leaving through the rest of the house piping, I closed the hot water valve and the pressure relief valve. Sure enough, I had air escaping from both the inlet and outlet pipes. It had left the factory without the pipe nipples being sealed and tightened.

One hour of pipe cutting, sealing, and re-soldering later I was back to filling again.

Andy Fox
07-12-2006, 2:28 PM
Tom,

Any chance it's the pressure relief valve? If it's just a small drip, there might be scale/debris preventing the valve from closing. Open it using the test lever briefly to see if that stops the leak. Or, if there's a bunch of water coming out of the valve, shut off the gas or breaker right away.

If it's not the pressure relief valve, I wouldn't risk flooding the entire house or scalding someone. I'd shut it down and drain it right away.

I'd say getting a 40 gal tank into the attic is a 2-4 person job.

Andy
who replaced his gas water heater in an unfinished basement last year because it transformed itself into a carbon monoxide generator

Norman Hitt
07-12-2006, 3:53 PM
Tom, by living in several houses and apartments over the years, I have had the unpleasant experience of "Several" water heater failures. Some leaked slowly for a day or two, then broke loose, (probably due to using hot water and it stirring the sediment/caking, and opening a path for the water to increase it's flow. One leaked slightly just enough to make the carpet in the hall seem slightly damp but the kids had beeh shooting water pistols and I thought it was that, but 2 hours later it Squished when I walked back through there, and a small Stream had developed.

One thing I can tell you for certain, is that if it breaks loose and floods, especially in the location your's is in, the $300 you had quoted to have it installed, will seem like chicken feed.:rolleyes: If it were "ME" with the experience I've had with those, and we've had one flood three times, (two while we were not at home),:mad: I would either; 1. Shut off the water supply to it until Saturday, when you have time to install it yourself, or 2. Get some help to haul it up there and at 9:00 PM install a new one tonight, or 3. Make a call to the Plumber within the next 30 minutes so he can install a new one this afternoon.

Besides the added expense of drying, repairing and replacing stuff from a flooded water heater, is the time involved and inconvenience of having to do all that while everything is drying out.

JMHO.............Norm

Don Baer
07-12-2006, 4:15 PM
I had a water heater fail in the middle of the night. The first clue was when I got up to get a cup of coffee when I walked into the kitchen I ended up sloshing through water. The heater was in the laundry adjacent to the Kitchen. No warning at all the thing just burst in the middle of the night. That was 30 years ago.

a two years ago I replaced my 17 year old heater before I had a repete. The next day I heard water running and discovered the pressure relief was open. I cycled it and it reseated. a few minutes later it went off again. I figured I had a defective one. Before calling to get a replacement one I figured I'd check the water pressure on my house. I put a pressure gage on a hose bib and discovered that my house water pressure was at 150 lbs. So I ended up replacing my incoming pressure regulator. Now it's at 80 lbs. where it belongs.

Tom Jones III
07-12-2006, 4:31 PM
Thanks for all the help. At this point I'm thinking that I will get the Paloma tankless heater and install it tonight. If I don't get done then I'll just leave the hot water off until I am finished. It is hot enough here that we could go a long time without it. An added benefit to the tankless is that it should weigh around 55 lbs so it should not be hard for me to carry upstairs alone.

I already have experience with water damage. Last summer the drain pipe for the A/C came apart inside the wall. It turns out that the installer didn't bother to glue ANY of the pvc drain pipe! As soon as a little backed up due to sediment the pipe just came apart, water running down the walls and dropping out of the ceiling onto the kitchen floor. Boy I don't want to go through that again.

Al Willits
07-12-2006, 5:24 PM
I hope you don't believe the 25 years with out problems statement.

Maybe contact people who have had theirs for a few years, they do need maintance and they are spendy when its needed.

Think water valve and scale for one, plus check to see who works on them in your area, you will need them.

They have there place, but they ain't all that great.

Al

Ben Grunow
07-12-2006, 9:09 PM
Tom- why not just shut the water off at night and when you go to work and take your time and replace it like a gentleman on Sat? I always do things like a cave man so I would do it late at night but maybe you have self control and patience?

Matt Warfield
07-12-2006, 9:46 PM
I'll third the vote for shutting the water off. My grandpa owns a plumbing/heating business so I've heard plenty of stories. While not a high percentage, it's entirely possible for the leak to just let loose. Shutting off the water is a wise choice.

Regarding tankless WH's, check on the routine maintenance requirements. Some of them require you to replace a valve once a year. Missing this replacement not only voids the warranty but gives you the wonderful gift of a siezed valve that's no longer removeable without replacing more expensive components. A 50 gallon is still my choice for a set it and forget it install. Also, when shopping for replacements, the WH's with the longer warranty typically only have a different color of paint and a different number before "year warranty." You're only paying for the extended warranty.

But, shut off your water when you're not home. Other than that, replace at your convenience.

-Matt

Al Willits
07-12-2006, 11:01 PM
""""""""""'
Also, when shopping for replacements, the WH's with the longer warranty typically only have a different color of paint and a different number before "year warranty." You're only paying for the extended warranty.
""""""""

Not always true, the 6 year and 12 year wh's we sell have differences, burner input being the big one, bigger burner, less recovery time, also the 12 year one has a brass drain valve, instead of the plastic one the 6 yr one does, makes a difference if your drainning a gallon or so out every few months, also insulation is different on them.

Shutting the water off is a good idea, but I'd turn the thermostat to the pilot posistion also, if the water drains out the burner will still come on otherwise.

Al

Tom Jones III
07-13-2006, 9:29 AM
Well I ended up doing just about everything you said since my last post. Turns out the tankless wasn't such a good deal. It required 4" stainless venting which would require an extra $300 minimum, nobody has the venting in stock anyway and would require getting on the roof to install a new vent hood.

I bought a 12 yr. 50 gallon gas heater and got the neighbor to help me lift it into the attic last night. Then I turned off the gas and water and drained the leaking heater. When I get home after work I'll hook up the new one.

Thanks again for all the help.

Al Willits
07-13-2006, 11:42 AM
Make sure you get some official leak soap to check for leaks...that not being advailible, try about 1/4 water and 3/4 dish soap, brush this on the fitting to check for leaks.

Al

Frank Hagan
07-14-2006, 12:22 AM
I think you'll find the old water heater much heavier than the new one ... they get filled up with sediment and weigh a ton! So get some help to get it down stairs. Gravity helps, but sometimes it helps too much!

If you use a soap solution to leak test the gas line, make sure you rinse the soap solution off with fresh water (the installation manual will warn you about this, as you can get corrosion and a gas leak later on due to the low pH of most soap).

Kyle Kraft
07-14-2006, 9:20 AM
Snoop leak detector made by Swagelok and available at your industrial piping supply house is the best stuff to use. (no affiliation with any of the above mentioned entities)

Al Willits
07-14-2006, 12:42 PM
Might be a bit worried if a layer of soap will eat though my gas pipe, our company has been using soap in leak detection for over 50 years with no problems.
But it does look better with it gone.
What you don't want to do is get soap into either the electrics or thermostat if a gas unit.
Our first line for leak detection is a device by Bascom Turner, but at $1200 a pop, I doubt you want to get one.

Soap and a little patience will work just fine.

Al

Frank Hagan
07-15-2006, 1:51 AM
Might be a bit worried if a layer of soap will eat though my gas pipe, our company has been using soap in leak detection for over 50 years with no problems.
But it does look better with it gone.
What you don't want to do is get soap into either the electrics or thermostat if a gas unit.
Our first line for leak detection is a device by Bascom Turner, but at $1200 a pop, I doubt you want to get one.

Soap and a little patience will work just fine.

Al

Its actually in the NFGC now, Al, so we have to include that recommendation in our manuals. Someone, somewhere, had problems with it (or one of the board members thought they did, anyway).

Al Willits
07-15-2006, 10:20 AM
Frank, our (Minn) code which I think is patterned off the national code book, says "The leakage shall be located by means of an approved combustible gas indicator, a noncorrosive leak detection fluid, or a equivalent non flammable solution"

I guess it depends on whether you think dish soap is corrosive or not, and with the code people, who knows...:)


I suppose the correct answer should have been to get a licensed, bonded, insured, etc, professional out there and do the work.

But I figured the original post wasn't quite looking for that reply..:)

Al

Tom Jones III
07-17-2006, 9:57 AM
Guys you've got to stop talking about gas leaks ... LOML has decided that she smells a gas leak but only when she puts her nose right next to the gas line. I've gone through the soap test with her and even replaced the line and fittings for her but she still thinks she smells gas. I don't know what I'm going to do next short of pay someone with testing equipment to come out.

Andy Fox
07-17-2006, 10:43 AM
I can smell something like gas when I put my nose within 6" of the WH thermostat. I thought maybe the metal smelled gas-like or something. Or maybe the human nose is sensitive enough to smell it through the pipe? Anyway, it's been fine for over a year now. It's right next to the open flame furnace, so we'd know if there was any explosive gas build-up by now. :eek:

Maybe your gas co. will come out and check it for free?

Cecil Arnold
07-17-2006, 10:45 AM
Tom, remind her that the methyl mercapitan (sp?) they use to add the smell to methane has another characteristic, besides its smell and ability to burn similar to methane, and that is its persistence. Black iron piping used as gas pipe then cut our or replaced will hold the odor for a long time, so any that has escaped when doing the replacement will persist for a while. I had the same problem when I put in a new cook top.

Don Baer
07-17-2006, 11:10 AM
Don't know about TX but out here the gas company will comeout free of charge and sniff the pipes for ya.

You might give em a call.