About a month ago my water heater (4ish years old) T&P valve popped off and wouldn't re-seal, so I replaced it. No issues for about a month, now it's dripping. I can"burp it" but drips again in a little bit. I'm wondering if I need to turn the temp down, I'ts where ever the factory set it, seems pretty hot. Not overly hot but hot. Thoughts??
What is the water pressure? If you don[t know, you can get a gauge like this to check
That is my guess, if there is even a tank installed. Back in the olden days the water expanded back into the system but now they have back flow preventers and the expanded water has nowhere to go. They will sell you a small expansion tank that gives you some wiggle room. It can be installed pretty much anywhere in the system. In a misguided effort to save a little energy some people even installed check valves in the cold water side of the water heater. This expansion tank would have to be on the water heater side of that valve.
On Thu, 20 May 2021 23:46:57 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com posted for all of us to digest...
hot. Thoughts??
+1 To: OP The valve responds to temperature and/or pressure. You state the temp is okay so that should not be the issue. This leaves pressure, which GFretwell address'. Have you had any other plumbing issues lately? Like water hammer? Are you on a well or public water?Thank you for the question and let us know if you need any more help and how the issue is resolved.
Well, it's not a "timing" thing, it's a "system" thing.
Not all houses, even in these modern times, have backflow preventers.
Yeah, but most new ones do, especially if you have irrigation. My gas fired water heat has an expansion tank too. Thousands of house built here have them. Unheard of years ago it is now code many places.
I get that.
I was only commenting on the use of the words ?Back in the olden days the water expanded back into the system...?
In millions and millions of houses the water *still* expands back into the system. Like I said, it?s not a ?timing? thing. What happened in the olden days still happens, in many, many cases, today. Only the OP can tell us how his house is set up.
I do find it interesting that the OP is handy enough to replace the T&P valve but he apparently hasn?t ever stuck a thermometer under a faucet.
Just knowing basic physics goes a long way. Heat water, it expands. Why don't all pressure relief valves open? Water has somewhere to go. Where does it go in my house? If you have a well with a tank, the tank is where it goes. If you have municipal water, it goes there, unless you have a backflow preventer. Like you pointed out, my house doesn't, nor do most homes here. New ones, IDK. If you have a BF preventer and no expansion tank or a water logged one, pressure is exceeded and valve opens. Haven't heard from the OP again. Maybe the WH blew?
No expansion tank, Back flow preventer? I don't think so. This house was built in1981. as I said it's 5 yr old heater. No other issues until I replaced the TP valve .The second heater n the house does not blow off. I believe The pressure regulator is set to 35-40 PSI. Rural city water. I have not checked the temp, i'm not sure i have a thermometer to do that with....
I think we discussed this before, but I can't remember the answer.
I just don't see how water expansion can be a problem. Prof. Google says "Water expands about four percent when heated from room temperature to its boiling point." so if I have an 80 (?) gallon water heater, it expands at most 3.2 gallons, but a lot less than that since I don't heat the water anywhere near boiling.
Recommended temp 125 - room temp 70 is 55, Boiling temp 212 - 70 is 142
55/142 is a a little over 1/3 so if it's proportional, that's 1.4 gallons of exapansion.Either way, don't the pipes leading to my house or almost any house hold more than that? So that even if it backs up, it won't get into anyone else's water? What do 100 feet of water line hold? Professor Google says "The capacity of a 100-foot length of 1-inch diameter hose is 4 gallons." Maybe none of the water line to a house is 1-inch?
FWIW, I don't have an expansion tank, and when I replaced the water heater, maybe I violated the regs, but I also couldnt' figure out where to put one and since they tend to go on the ceiling, it would have been a lot more effort than only replacing the tank. But to illustrate that I'm a good citizen anyhow, when I got the tank out of the box, it was crushed somewhat on top, and the inlet or outlet pipe wasn't even fully vertical, 5 or 10 degrees off. I could have returned it but they would have scrapped it, I think. What a waste. So I used it anyhow, even though it was a little harder to connect, and probably under tension still, but it's been doing fine for several years. I hope that makes up for not installing an expansion tank.
(6 PM, notes for another reason, because even something as simple as 6PM I can forget within 2 minutes.)
Is the 2nd, no problem, water heater above the problem one? Maybe on the 2nd floor? A column of water, 2.31 ft. high will have 1 psi at the bottom. Multiply by 5, just to be more practical. A column 11.55 ft. high will have 5 psi at the bottom just because of gravity. Someone suggested a pressure gauge. If you have one, Is it working?
hot. Thoughts??
There is the International Plumbing code (2015 cycle cited here)
607.3 Thermal expansion control. Where a storage water heater is supplied with cold water that passes through a check valve, pressure reducing valve or backflow preventer, a thermal expansion tank shall be connected to the water heater cold water supply pipe at a point that is downstream of all check valves, pressure reducing valves and backflow preventers. Thermal expansion tanks shall be sized in accordance with the tank manufacturer?s instructions and shall be sized such that the pressure in the water distribution system shall not exceed that required by Section 604.8.SECTION 608 PROTECTION OF POTABLE WATER SUPPLY 608.1 General. A potable water supply system shall be designed, installed and maintained in such a manner so as to prevent contamination from non-potable liquids, solids or gases being introduced into the potable water supply through cross-connections or any other piping connections to the system. Backflow preventers shall conform to the applicable Standard referenced in Table 608.1. Backflow preventer applications shall conform to Table 608.1, except as specifically stated in Sections 608.2 through 608.16.27 and Sections 608.18 through 608.18.2.
*********** It goes on to describe all of the code compliant ways to prevent water from flowing back into the water system.
Does that mean you looked and you don't have them or you didn't look and are guessing?
This house was built in1981. as I said it's 5 yr old heater. No other issues until
You said you replaced that one because it opened. Now the new one is dripping. That suggests that temp or pressure is the problem. But it could also be that the new valve is defective. Since you can't measure the temp or pressure, the possible paths are:
Buy a thermometer and a cheap pressure gauge that you can connect to a spigot on the system.
Buy a new TP valve
Make a likely determination based on what you see. If the water does not seem extremely hot coming out of a faucet, it's not a temp problem. If the pressure does not appear to be very high at faucets, spigots, etc, it's probably not a pressure problem.
Try turning down the temperature on the tank, does that stop it? If not, leave a faucet with a tiny stream flowing and see if that stops it. If not, then it's a faulty TPR.
The second heater n the house does not blow off. I believe The pressure regulator is set to 35-40 PSI. Rural city water. I have not checked the temp, i'm not sure i have a thermometer to do that with....
That is awful low. City water is typically delivered at 60-80 PSI. Plumbing fixtures are rated at 80 so that 3GPM shower head is going to be pretty wimpy at 40. My "house pump" on the well is set 40-60 and it is still not that great with all the low flow fixtures I have. The Price Pisser kitchen faucet is the worst. I doubt I get 2 GPM out of it.
IIRC, it actually is but it takes a really large amount of energy. If the sun were 100% converted to energy, it still wouldn't be enough.
The info I see is the plutonium is a hollow sphere filled with hydrogen gas, so relative easy to compress with the bomb around it that sets it off. It is not a solid sphere.
For all practical purposes water is incompressible. I am sure it could be compressed if it fell into a black hole.
I doubt that. And what volume of water compressed by how much?
Plutonium "fission" atom bombs originally (and probably still) work on "implosion". Explosives around the plutonium reduce the volume of the solid metal sphere to 1/2 the original volume (so the entire sphere is suddenly "critical").
This problem, like so many others, will be resolved when that happy day comes when Leftists are rounded up and transported to predetermined locations around the country where they can then be exterminated.
No Plutonium bombs were "gun" type bombs. Half the Pt was at one end of the "barrel" and it was fired into the other half to become critical.
Gun types won't compress uranium enough to go critical so is a sphere with explosives all around, timed perfectly to focus the pressure wave into the center form all sides at once.
Everything is compressible, to some degree. Water compresses at ~50 ppm per atm (water isn't special in this regard). It's certainly not enough for this application but not absolute either.
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