Building a dam around a water heater FAQ

Does it need to stand-up-to any traffic or floor scrubbing ? My first thought was a length of flexi rubber <weather stripping ? >

and some silicone caulk/adhesive - glue it to the floor. John T.

Empty it, take the inles and outlet pipes off if they arent flexible hoses, put a pan under it, put the pipes back and carry on regardless.

Mine it raised off the floor. Zall's is pretty much what mine has with the addition of a pipe at the top of the drain pan, which I pipe to a 5 gallon bucket. Hopefully ...

I check about every two weeks.

Drain pan as suggested with a drain hose on bottom leading to floor drain or sump. If the entire thing leaks the main water will still be filling it.

I don't think so. I'm not going to redo my old one, it's near end of life. Actually it's past the average life in this area. When I replace it, sure, I'll put a pan under it.

But the purpose of the pan is to alert me to the leak. And yes, the main water would still be filling it, but my experience has been water heaters don't leak catastrophically. It's a small drip that gives you a little time to respond.

At my age it's not a guarantee the new water heater will leak before I do. Newer ones don't seem to last as long.

In my state, the drain pan is required to discharge into a drainage system or to drain to the exterior of the home (and not, for example, somewhere where people might walk).

"Min 1½ in. deep pan with ¾ in. drain required when water heater is over space where leakage could cause damage to wood framing. (507.5) Discharge pipe to approved location."

Additionally,

"Temperature & Pressure Relief Valve (TPRV) drain pipe cannot run uphill and must terminate on the exterior of the building, pointing down, 6 ­ 24 in. above grade with no threads on end. The pipe must be hard-drawn copper, galvanized, CPVC, or pipe listed for the purpose (507.5) and may not drain to pan (608.5)."

I've been living right, I guess .. or lucky. .. in my 65 years on the planet, I've never seen a water heater with a drain pan and I've never had one that leaked. John T.

Interesting. I didn't know that. In my case the heater is in the basement so it's not over space, and the TPRV discharges into a drain. I don't see any way to make it discharge outside the building without running uphill though.

I haven't had one with a pan yet, but it seems a good idea.

Your state codes may vary. Homes in my state very seldom have basements as most of the populated portions of the state don't reach freezing temperatures for more than a couple of hours overnight in February (and few wish to be caught in the basement during an temblor).

A google search for "<your city/county name> county water heater regulations" may be informative. In my case, the county just uses the statewide requirements.

My last water heater started leaking (it's in the garage). I installed a pan (and expansion tank) for the replacement, plumbed with CPVC to the exterior.

With my well water and electric water heater I am lucky to get one lasting through the warranty period. I have never had one catastrophically leak. My water heater is in the basement near but not right on the French drain. I like the suggestion of maybe forming a dam to make sure water is directed to the French drain.

I wouldn't go to the trouble of rmoving a WH just to put a pan underneath it even if I planned to spend 30 more years here.

Does the same have to be a pretty circle? Is it crowded around the WH. If not take some 1s2 or 2x2 and build a wall, you can glue it to the floor, maybe the wall will be one side. Later, when you get a new WH you can put in a regualr pan, and maybe you can scrape the glue off the floor.

If it has to be round maybe you can glue a garden hose to the floor.

The water signal I bought, to put in the lanndry sink or the sump didn't work well, but it was very cheap. Or maybe it just was that I coudln't hear it from upstairs.

I didn't want to but I glued a piece of wood in the doorway from the laundry room to the other rooms. The buyer will know it's there because there were floods, but OTOH he should know so he'll remember to plug up the sink. I was going to leave a long note about the house anyhow.

Early on when I hadn't fully stopped the stream from backing up into my laundry sink, it did that one day. Less than 1/4" of water on the floor, much of it only 1/8". Then the water in the sink subsided and I waited for the basement to dry out, as had done pretty quickly in the past** . But it didn't dry. I didn't know why not. Finally I realized the WH was leaking, like you say, it was a slow leak, but there was no end to it since the water was still connected. If I didn't have a sink that backed up, I would have noticed the WH immediately. I don't know where the leak was. The WH I tore apart was one thick vinyl balloon with only 2 holes at the top and two at the bottom. Does it leak through or around the drain or the pressure relief valve.

Never had a pan until my latest one (4 months ago.) The last 2 leaked, but at over 15 years, but not catastrophically. A pan would have easily contained it.

Now that I have a pan, the new one will probably blow all 50 gallons at once.

LOL

Google has a parial answer for my earlier question, from where (whence?) do water heaters leak, given that my glass-lined water heater was one 1/4+" thick vinyl balloon with only 4 openings, two at the top and water can't leak out the top, and two at the bottom, and google said that it's the drain that frequenly leaks, not around the drain but through it, and the remedy is to screw a cap on the spout. They're easy to find and cheap.

You can do this when the WH is new too. The drain isn't used until you want to drain it.

If you're curious, you can take it off and see if it drips. I think I will do this soon. It would mean I woudln't even have to replace the WH if there is a leak that cannot leak.

No. My experience is water heaters leak when the steel tank rusts through. It's a pinhole at first, which is why it's a slow leak.

So the tank was actually metal.

My tank in the one case I checked was vinyl, and I can't imagine it getting a hole through the whole 1/4".

But they called it "glass lined", and because I'm so literal, I thought it would be glass like window glass or a drinking glass, and that it was meant to say, I guess, that the water wouldn't pick up any dissolved metals or anything. I was afraid if I bumped it on a step when taking it down to the basement that the glass would shatter. But it was vinyl. I guess there was glass in the vinyl.

Here's a related link,

"Their [the steel ones] weight is also advantageous if you are going to install the heater by yourself, as a heavy [glass] heater would require multiple people to be lifted and installed" I brought home from Sears and installed my glass-lined WH by myself and didn't find it very heavy. Are there ones with real glass tanks?

Maybe mine needs an anode rod; maybe it came with an anode rod and I'm supposed to replace it when it wears out, but I built a shelf right over the WH and there is only 4" of space between the two. I could check, but I don't remember anything in the top of the WH except the input and output.

I'm confused, but at least I have hot water.

Maybe it was only 3/16" but it was still a lot. It was hard to peel away from the metal tank. Fairly stiff.

From the link above: "Glass-lined heaters are more susceptible to damage during transportation, installation, and later during operation, as the glass-lining cracks easily."

So I wasn't stupid after all. There really are some wh's with glass that can crack. But there was zero chance this would crack.

I wonder if this article was written decades ago before vinyl-lined tanks existed**. Esp. vinyl-lined that are called glass-lined. Unless I got mixed up and the one I took apart wasn't vinyl-lilned, but all the WH's I buy are pretty much the same, because I buy based on how far apart the input and output are, because I have a compulsive desire not to use bendable or zigzag pipes to connect tthem. The one that came with the house was AOSmith and the ones I bought at Sears were, I figure, also made by AOSmith even though they had a Sears brand.

Since the tank is pressurized, it seems possible that it could leak at the top and not only at the bottom. Of course, if we're going with what's more likely, I suppose bottom wins.

I've always assumed that "glass lined" meant fiberglas. I don't see how it's possible to put actual glass inside a steel tank and not break it during shipment, nor do I see what advantage there would be. Also expansion and contraction from cold water being heated would seem to be a problem. Micky's description of thick vinyl sounds a lot like fiberglas.

But I don't really know, and am willing to be corrected.

It is spray on glass. Frit is sprayed on the metal, heated, melted, solidified.

Think of it as like a glazed pottery.