My 3 month old water heater flooded the better part of 2 rooms, emptied the entire heater tank. No hot water was being used right before this happened; it occurred between 5:30 am and 7 am, and my housemate and I were both asleep then. Plumber says it's because the heat setting was too high, causing the pressure relief valve to empty out the tank due to excessive high pressure from the heat. I've always kept my water heaters on the hottest setting (not past the end of the dial, obviously). I had never heard of this and want to know if that could actually be the cause? There was no outflow pipe from the pan beneath the heater because it's inside the kitchen so no way to run a pipe across the floor. However, I don't see why a pipe couldn't have been run up into the attic crawl space to the exterior of the house, and from there to the yard? If the water is under pressure, it wouldn't matter that it had to go uphill 6 or 8 feet first, would it? I am a totally newbie with no knowledge of how the system is supposed to work, just wondering about the explanation. Isn't just as likely that the valve was defective and failed? Could the drain valve have opened temporarily for some reason? The house has a regulator between the water main water to the house (150 psi) and the water going into the house (I think 60 psi?) At any rate, the plumber said the regulator outside was working properly, so it wasn't pressure too high from the incoming water. He cut the line from the street to measure the incoming pressure, replaced the exterior regulator, and installed a
60 psi pressure relief tank at one of the outside cold water spigots. Also placed a leak alarm in the pan under the heater at my request. As far as I know, he did not check the actual temperature of the hot water at that setting after it was back in service, and I'm also wondering could the thermostat be faulty allowing the water to get way too hot? It sounds like he was telling me it was boiling hot which would clearly be extremely unsafe, and certainly hotter than it's ever been before. Any thoughts/feedback would be much appreciated.- posted
4 years ago