Water Heater Worries

[Rich Enders]

Years ago I worked at a company that developed a water heater supply shutoff system that activated if the inbound water flow was greater than the outbound water flow. Sensors were installed at the inbound and outbound water connections. Once the inbound supply is closed the vacuum created prevents further leakage. Isn't there such a system available today?

[Neil Gaskin]

The sensor and the pan are good ideas but they do not necessary prevent all possible damage. You still have I'm guessing at least 30 gallons and maybe 50 in the tank that will end up all over. 50 gallons of water while not catostraufic has a way of screwing up a morning. If the heater is looking like it might fail and rusting its cheap insurance to replace it. You normally need to disconnect the heater to install the pan anyway so you're already paying for the labor. You're only out the cost of the heater.

[Alan Rutherford]

It's true that most WH leaks start small, but we had one in a garage that got quite a bit of the cement floor wet. It's been a long time and I can't remember how much, but more than you want in the house.

I have an alarm that has 2 metal contacts at the end of a 4-foot wire and makes a loud screeching noise when they get wet. The contact end is in the bottom of our WH drain pan with a scrap of paper towel wrapped around it to be sure it wicks up any water onto the contacts. I try it out once in a while. I've also used it in the closet for the Air Handler Unit of our AC when we had drainage problems. It's a cheap thing I might have bought at a flea market for less than $5 but it works.

Add my vote for the ball valve.

[Jim Becker]

Ideally, the pan is supposed to be plumbed to a drain (that is code in many places), so it should not overflow.

This. The pan must be plumbed to drain outside or to the sewer to perform its function. (Same goes for a pan under a washer...)

[Rich Riddle]

Why wait for it to break? Replace it. Call it preventative maintenance like one does with belts and water pumps on a car.

[Jerry Thompson]

I am glad this subject came up. Our 80 gal. water tank for our solar heated hot water is 30 years old. It is a time bomb. I just scheduled to have it replaced in the coming weeks.
Once I knocked a pot off of the dryer and it hit the drain spigot. It snapped and there was 80 gallons of hot and I mean hot H2O spewing out onto the floor. There was no way to shut it off due to the steaming hot water.
One thing is for sure. The laundry room tile was CLEAN!

[Mel Fulks]

I've never understood why the water heaters get so much concern and the toilets get so little. Especially since toilet leaks can go unnoticed til the damage is done. The leaks are a top insurance cost.

[Mike Henderson]

I've never understood why the water heaters get so much concern and the toilets get so little. Especially since toilet leaks can go unnoticed til the damage is done. The leaks are a top insurance cost.

They can both be a mess if you're on vacation. I always turn the water off to the house when I go on vacation.

My experience with toilets is that the hose that connects them to the supply breaks or leaks. Can create quite a mess, especially if it runs for days on end while you're gone.

Mike

[Ken Fitzgerald]

The hoses to sinks and wash machines can do it too! When I redid the plumbing in our utility room, I put in a mechanical valve, 1 lever, shuts off both the hot and cold water to the wash machine.

A former coworker left the corporate world to become a missionary in Romania. He took his family there for 4 weeks prior to leaving the company. When he arrived home, he found a cold water supply hose to his kitchen sink had burst while he was away. He arrived back to find the bottom two levels of his home destroyed. He arrived back in early November. It was the middle of February before they were able to move back into his home. All the sheetrock, insulation, floors on the two bottom floors of this tri-level home had to be removed, and the house dehumidified. Then the remodeling could take place. The final insult was a $600+ water bill for that month.

[Mel Fulks]

Yep,choosing to move to Romania was a good decision! But some don't get that choice and have to just clean it,fix it and move back in.

[James Gunning]

I was an airline pilot and on a layover in Harrisburg. Sound asleep in a hotel at 11:30 at night and the phone in my room rings. My now ex-wife calling to tell me the garage is flooding. (It wasn't really flooding-she was a little dramatic at times) I talk her through turning off the house supply water, and the outlet from the tank, and tell her to go back to bed. The water heater had rusted through and there was a small leak (pretty much a pinhole) slowly leaking out on the garage floor. No drain pan, but no real worry about anything getting wet since the heater was on the upper step and the water was dribbling down to the lower and would eventually wind up outside. On arrival at home the next afternoon I went to a big box store and as luck would have it found the identical water heater in stock. I bought it, managed to get it home in the trunk of the car and in an hour or so, it was installed and the old one on the curb. This was the second similar call from her in two weeks. The first was her walking into a spare bedroom and finding the carpet soaked against a common wall with a bathroom. I talked her through getting the water off and then using our rug shampooer to suck up the water in the carpet. That one turned out to be a pin-holed copper water feed pipe to the toilet tank. Fixed that the next day when I got home. Eventually, more pinholes and a replacement with pex for the entire house, but that's another story.

The suggestion to turn the water off when you leave is solid advice. I was already doing that when both of these potential disasters happened with somebody home. A fellow pilot had his home destroyed when a washer hose burst when he was sound asleep at home. He woke up the next morning and put his feet into a couple inches of water in the bedroom. (ranch style slab house in FL-water in every room) Complete sheetrock and insulation replacement plus all flooring and furniture. Insurance company told me that is the most costly and frequent household claim they have.

I would do whatever it took to give peace of mind about it. I have a single lever shutoff on the washer hoses, which are braided metal and replaced every few years. The water tank is due for replacement since the current one has been there since 1998. Will likely get a tankless this time. We never leave for more than a few hours without turning off the water and tripping the water heater circuit breaker to shut off the power to it. I also installed an easy to operate 1/4 turn valve on the supply line where we can get to it quickly. (The old one was a gate valve that was hard to operate)

Having been a landlord years ago, I will testify that you cannot rely on the renters to do the proper thing if there is a leak. Some might, but more likely not. Many folks (renters and owners) don't even know to turn off the water, let alone do more than that. At a minimum, I would certainly install some kind of drain pan on the water heater and make sure the washer hoses are in good condition.