Quick basic advice on a dripping gas 40-gal hot-water heater

n

Call al local plumber and save a bundle of money. The flex pipe should be replaced with every installation though. As a plumber EH if passes leak test and in good shape no Also it is not a good Idea to leave the gas on and burner going if tank is leaking with the cold feed off shut it off as the tank is pressurizing Amatures will do anything .

Reply to
jim
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I don't know why you continue to dismiss a 12 year warranty on the water heater as useless. You seem to be saying that because that is about the typical life of a water heater, that the warranty is of no value. Yet you value a 1 year warranty on labor? No manufacturer is ever going to give you a warranty for longer than the typical life of the item. Do auto manufacturers give you a 150,000 mile warranty on a car? Just because the typical water heater lasts about 13 years doesn't mean yours will. The biggest difference is in your water, which can vary greatly. In some areas, tanks frequently fail in only

8 years. And I'd rather have a warranty that is going to cover the unit itself, regardless of who pays for the labor. Since you're installing it yourself, there is no labor anyway, so why is that even an issue?

I have a State water heater. A few years ago, the thermocouple went when it was maybe 4 years old. I called them up and I had one here in 2 days, no questions asked. Didn't cost me a cent, not even shipping. Now the thermocouple is only a $15 part, but it could have been the valve assembly which is probably 6X or the tank which would have been $350.

Now, how much extra you may want to pay for a longer warranty is open to debate. But I don't get how you can dismiss a 12 year warranty on the unit as nearly useless.

Reply to
trader4

n
Reply to
jim

n

Get a plumber as most of the Bob Villas on here are wrong gas is something you should not play with and to the idiot that doesn't pull permits. Most insurance companies will not cover a fire if you have one and the tank had no permit pulled so it is your house and your pocket book but I err on the correct way. My Licence has taught the right way and correcting the Bob Villas of the world when it comes to gas

Reply to
jim

Hi Vic Smith, THIS IS MY BIGGEST CONFUSION! I see only *some* of the hot water heater replacement guides saying to use the di-electric fittings while others ignore it totally. Our existing plumbing has galvanized connected to flex tubing connected to nipple on the hot water heater.

I was wondering why some hot water heater repair guides said to use Teflon tape (TPFE?) on the water lines but pipe dope (TPE?) on the gas lines yet the tube that I bought says it works for both gas and water. That's confusing. I was careful to only state in my hot water heater step by step guide just what I had read in other guides, taking the best except where they conflicted.

Excellent hint! I'll add it to the tutorial as an additional step! Thanks for improving the a.h.r hot-water heater tutorial for others to benefit!

Sigh. This was my biggest hurdle. Trying to get accuracy where there was none. That's why we bought so many plumbing extras!

Yup. That's why we waited until after our morning showers on a Sunday. The stores will be happy to sell us parts all day!

We agree. Strangely, the cold-water pipes are all full of crusty white baking-soda like crud while the hot-water side seems relatively free of scale. We're still replacing everything, including the old round green twist gate valve, with newer better plumbing like the red lever ball valve.

Thanks Vic. I'd have to die trying in order not to report back to the group. I'm the official photographer as Bill does the work (he hates my flashing all around him) so I'll have complete step-by-step photos of the job, starting from the fiasco when we tried to "save the box" the heater came in.

Oh my! It was a disaster just getting the new hot water heater out of the box, upside down, without damaging the box!

Donna

Reply to
Donna Ohl, Grady Volunteer Coo

Hi Nate, That dialectric stuff confuses me to no end.

The nipples already screwed into the top of the hot water heater seem to have blue plastic inside them but they look like steel. I was actually expecting two black steel female fittings in the top of the tank based on what I saw at the store but this tank, when we finally got it out of the box, has two whitish chromeyish nipples already screwed in.

Are you saying we can put the copper or stainless steel flex tubing directly onto those two nipples sticking out of the top of the new hot water heater?

Donna

Reply to
Donna Ohl, Grady Volunteer Coo

Hi Trader,

Thanks for keeping up on this. Maybe I'm wrong on the warrantee but I took logic in college and the warrantee seems like a useless marketing tool to me when I read through what I have to do in order to "make good" on it.

It's hard for me to write this reply because I feel the warranty is only an advertising gimmick which, to me, is only useful for the first year, mainly because I'm never going to take the water heater apart and bring it to the store to obtain the "free" replacement after the first year - and - the alternative is to pay as much for the labor as the entire water heater cost in the first place - so the "free" replacement costs just as much as the original parts if I have a plumber come to me to inspect, diagnose, and replace it. The warrantee seems absolutely useless to me, after the first year given those realistic concerns.

Worse than that, I read the entire text of the Sears "12-year limited warranty" which intimates Sears will replace parts that are defective and the water heater itself *only* if it develops a leak (no other replacement is warranted).

This is the ENTIRE issue! If I have to remove the entire water heater in order to bring it to the store just to see if they'll warrant the parts or the leaking tank, that's absolutely crazy! Do people really remove their water heater, truck it in the back of their car to the store, have someone at the store look at it and decide whether or not to replace the parts, then, if they decide not to, you truck it back home and re-install it? Or, if they decide to replace the parts, they hand you the new parts and you truck the whole drippy thing back home to re-install it? I think not.

If I need to make good on the warrantee, the only way I'll ever do it is to call a Sears plumber at 800-469-4663 who will likely charge me as much for the visit as the thing cost in the first place. Sure, I'll get a new water heater - and it will cost me exactly what it cost when I bought it considering I MUST use their labor. I have no choice this second time around.

My whole point is the automobile analogy you provided is exactly opposite of reality! You can easily DRIVE the car to the dealership to get a part diagnosed and fixed but to drive your water heater to the Sears store would be ludicrous (for me).

Do you see why the automobile analogy doesn't apply for a water heater? Bringing the water heater to the dealer isn't an option. To bring the dealer to the water heater costs as much as the water heater. It's that simple to me.

Donna

Reply to
Donna Ohl, Grady Volunteer Coo

Hi Edwin,

Wow. You're good. You caught a bunch of nuances that I will both modify to improve (and repost when the job's done) and a few I'll explain better.

In this case, as per advice here, Bill will be removing the existing twisty-knob cold-water valve to because I asked him to replace that round green "gate" valve with a red-lever-twist ball valve.

Oh. OK. I was confused. I'll modify that. Some of the tutorials I read said to open just one hot-water faucet while others said to open them all. I was confused. I'll modify the tutorial so others following us benefit.

Good point. Actually, we take a long hot shower every morning and Bill has been gone a while, so, we really wanted to take that last steaming hot shower on the old tank so that's why I said it that way. It *is* a great idea to bleed off the hot water so as to dilute the tank so that will be added to the tutorial.

Good point. I realized I mixed the standard-maintenance drain procedure with the removal procedure. For a maintenance drain, we'd open a hot-water faucet. For a removal and replacement, we can disconnect the lines. Good point. I will modify the tutorial so we all benefit.

Very astute Edwin. The Sears guy, when showed pictures of what we had with yardsticks taped in place said we could just tin snip or hack saw the existing 3 inch vent pipe a few inches shorter. This will be the biggest 'modification' that we'll have to do to accomodatge the hugely larger heater. The Sears salesman said it was so much larger because of all the insulation. He even said we don't need any blanket as it wouldn't add any R value, he said.

Wow Edwin. You are very observant. After speaking to the Sears guy, we tried to find a gas line that had an integrated on-off valve like the one we have and we couldn't find any of them in his yellow hose collection. He said the gas line doesn't corrode and our pictures we showed him show it to be in good shape so we figured we'd keep the existing gas line. For the tutorial, I did a "do as I say not as I do" but you caught me in my parts list! Very clever!

Should I remove this part from the tutorial? Does nobody replace the gas lines? (we're not going to).

OK. I'll modify the hot water heater replacement how to.

Thanks for your astute advice - I'm happily surprised that others pay as much attention to detail as I do in my home water heater replacement tutorial!

Donna

Reply to
Donna Ohl, Grady Volunteer Coo

Di-electrics are used when collecting copper to steel. Newer homes usually have all copper. Di-electrics usually come into play when replacing the main service (the bigger supply lines) from galvanized to copper, but leaving the plumbing wall galvanized pipes in place. You would use a di-electirc union between the copper and galvanized. I've never used flex on a hot water heater, but suppose that flex connectors have the di-electric insulator built in. Should be some specs attached to that type of connector.

The hot and cold pipes could be different ages, or the mineral content could precipitate differently that what has been my experience, which is the hot water scaling up much more. I wouldn't use a ball valve as a stop valve. For long term use I believe a typical globe or gate valve will prove more reliable.

--Vic

Reply to
Vic Smith

Hi msg,

I retired from a career in public-school teaching two years ago.

At one point, I taught very young autistic and aspergers children; we found the best therapy for their social disability was to break down even the most mundane of tasks into their every component.

By behavioral modification, the children could perform the behavior on their own, outside the classroom.

This is much like what a software engineer does when writing routine or complex software, is it not?

Donna

Reply to
Donna Ohl, Grady Volunteer Coo

Hi Vic,

There is a black rubber grommet inside the copper flex tube's brass fittings. Maybe that's the dialectric; but it's tremendously smaller than the fist-sized dialectric unions we bought yesterday.

Donna

Reply to
Donna Ohl, Grady Volunteer Coo

Hi Vic,

I was thinking it was the condensation on the cold-water pipe (being in the unheated garage) that allowed the scaley white crust to build up only on the cold-water pipe.

We recently moved here so we don't know what the history is on the hot-water pipe; maybe it is simply newer.

Donna

Reply to
Donna Ohl, Grady Volunteer Coo

Hi clams,

We *are* doing it right. That's why I'm here in the first place. To get it right. I do appreciate the help. From everyone. And, I'll give back by posting the tutorial for others like us to follow.

In fact, we feel we're possibly doing it *better* than a plumber might, at least in terms of raw material. It seems to us (unsubstantiated opinion) that a plumber might tend to maximize his *time* and not necessarily the quality of the materials - unless specifically asked to by the homeowner (who must correspondingly be willing to pay for the extra parts cost and labor).

Bill is in his final shower as we speak. The gas is off.

He can sing in that steaming hot shower for as long as he likes and, for once, I won't be on his back about wasting the hot water!

Donna

Reply to
Donna Ohl, Grady Volunteer Coo

Indeed, I almost labeled your post a "flow chart" but it didn't use the standard conventions of flow charting ;-).

Are you planning on posting your photos and tutorial? What would be the URL?

Michael

Reply to
msg

Could be. I was talking about the inside of the pipe, where condensation isn't an issue. I've seen some hot water pipes which were almost completely clogged with scale. I believe it's because the heat causes the mineral solution to more readily deposit on the steel.

--Vic

Reply to
Vic Smith

"Donna Ohl, Grady Volunteer Coordinator" wrote in message news:e5Qtj.662$ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi070.nbdc.sbc.com...

For a year or two, probably. Does it have a rubber flap in it or is it a real check valve? If it's a check valve, don't use it. They rattle after some time. (i'd question the rubber flap kind too; they'd get stuck in the 'outflow' direction eventually)

If you want it to work forever, make your own. Make a loop out of the flexible copper line or solder one out of rigid copper. You'll find out that flexible copper isn't very flexible. I did the latter, the side that goes up from the tank is hot, the side that comes back down is cold after it's been sitting for a while. Mine's 12" from top to bottom, 6" is probably ok. No ball to rattle, will work until the laws of physics are repealed.

If you put in a proper heat trap as described above, insulated pipes are unnecessary.

You'll need the unions.

Reply to
Bob M.

Don't use galvanized pipe; it rusts from the inside out after a few decades. Use copper.

Reply to
Bob M.

Another point about check valves. Some are swing checks that must be mounted horizontal. Spring checks can go vertical. Personally, I'd not use one

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

I agree, the OP is talking about a retrofit of a water heater in a house that already has galv. water pipes. They probably ought to be replaced with copper at some point, but one job at a time :)

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Dielectric unions are needed to prevent reactions between dissimilar metals, causing leaks years from now. This is why copper hanger brackets or straps should be used with copper pipe.

Sometimes though, unions are used simply to facilitate future disassembly; no desoldering required, just a big wrench.

Reply to
Bob M.

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