My wonderful water heater which has served me many years has finally corroded through on the bottom. Not bad timing as we're in the middle of a heat wave here in Oregon.
I have:
* Turned off the cold water IN outlet and I turned the electricity off at the breaker.
* Turned all the hot water spigots in the house on and left them open to clear anything in them.
* Hooked a hose to the water heater bib (the little spigot at the bottom of the heater) and drained the excess water today with the water heater being off for 2 days in 90+ degree weather.
The hose is still hooked up 12 hours later and there's still about a cup of water coming out every 20 seconds.
I physically touch the cold water IN line and there's no water in it so it's room temperature. I physically touch the hot water OUT line, but instead of also being room temperature it's very, very cold.
Somehow there appears to be cold water entering my hot water OUT line on the hot water heater. Interestingly enough, I found a set of directions to drain the tank to replace the heating elements from my late stepfather from waaay back in 1998 and there is mention of this.
After going through basically the steps I have, he noticed the same thing:
"The problem is that the hot water outlet leaks back into the tank. Enough leaks back in to replace the gravity drain to the street! Where does it come from? Don't know so... The tank won't drain until the hot water outlet is removed from the tank"
Can anyone out there explain how this could happen? It's almost granted that this has been like this for the life of the house, about 30 years.
I -really- appreciate any ideas you have or what this might imply- so I can go off and do more searching. I'd like to address this if I can.
Thank you for reading,
Inayity
I have:
* Turned off the cold water IN outlet and I turned the electricity off at the breaker.
* Turned all the hot water spigots in the house on and left them open to clear anything in them.
* Hooked a hose to the water heater bib (the little spigot at the bottom of the heater) and drained the excess water today with the water heater being off for 2 days in 90+ degree weather.
The hose is still hooked up 12 hours later and there's still about a cup of water coming out every 20 seconds.
I physically touch the cold water IN line and there's no water in it so it's room temperature. I physically touch the hot water OUT line, but instead of also being room temperature it's very, very cold.
Somehow there appears to be cold water entering my hot water OUT line on the hot water heater. Interestingly enough, I found a set of directions to drain the tank to replace the heating elements from my late stepfather from waaay back in 1998 and there is mention of this.
After going through basically the steps I have, he noticed the same thing:
"The problem is that the hot water outlet leaks back into the tank. Enough leaks back in to replace the gravity drain to the street! Where does it come from? Don't know so... The tank won't drain until the hot water outlet is removed from the tank"
Can anyone out there explain how this could happen? It's almost granted that this has been like this for the life of the house, about 30 years.
I -really- appreciate any ideas you have or what this might imply- so I can go off and do more searching. I'd like to address this if I can.
Thank you for reading,
Inayity