Water Heater Maintenence

[DJ_Critterus]

Originally Posted by Don Rickles

I’ll look into these tankless heaters, I assume the electric ones will require a 240/ double 20amp breaker? Aero could wire it! It would take some doing to run a wire up to the bathroom….

Houses….always something!

Let Aero and Yaddie have a meeting of the mindless and figure out your 220 situation. They can both over engineer it while doing it wrong all in one shot

[Don Rickles]

Originally Posted by DJ_Critterus

Let Aero and Yaddie have a meeting of the mindless and figure out your 220 situation. They can both over engineer it while doing it wrong all in one shot

Never get anything accomplished, they’d argue non stop….

[DJ_Critterus]

Originally Posted by Don Rickles

Never get anything accomplished, they’d argue non stop….

It would be entertaining, at the least.

[Vandelay Industries]

Originally Posted by DJ_Critterus

Let Aero and Yaddie have a meeting of the mindless and figure out your 220 situation. They can both over engineer it while doing it wrong all in one shot

They did a bang up job on mine.

[MadInNc]

Originally Posted by DJ_Critterus

It would be entertaining, at the least.

Until they sucked all the Oxygen out of the room

[Bruze]

Originally Posted by Don Rickles

Never get anything accomplished, they’d argue non stop….

[Mike Mercury]

I have my well water go through this first:



before going anywhere else (water heater, softener, pressure tank...). It gets quite nasty in a year.

[Bill]

I can't put down my copy of Yad and the Art of Water Heater Maintenance. Truly a metaphor for living life fully!

[Bruze]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

I can't put down my copy of Yad and the Art of Water Heater Maintenance. Truly a metaphor for living life fully!

It's a classic, I tell ya.

[Black94lt1]

Originally Posted by Don Rickles

I’ll look into these tankless heaters, I assume the electric ones will require a 240/ double 20amp breaker? Aero could wire it! It would take some doing to run a wire up to the bathroom….

Houses….always something!

More like 100-150 amps, some I’ve seen require 3 50A breakers.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by Black94lt1

More like 100-150 amps, some I’ve seen require 3 50A breakers.

[Aerovette]

Originally Posted by DJ_Critterus

Let Aero and Yaddie have a meeting of the mindless and figure out your 220 situation. They can both over engineer it while doing it wrong all in one shot

220, 221, whatever it takes.

[MadInNc]

Originally Posted by Black94lt1

More like 100-150 amps, some I’ve seen require 3 50A breakers.

Full electric tankless are cheaper cash outlay compared to gas tankless but they do suck the power.

My Son In Law is looking at a “Heat Pump Water Heater”. Home Depot sells the and while they are comparable price to a gas tankless water heater, they really don’t require much at all electricity to run (claim less than a lightbulb - annually)

https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/h...-water-heaters

Rheem has been selling these since 2009
https://www.rheem.com/heatpumpwaterheater/

[Big bob]

Heat your water while cooling your garage.

[Bruze]

Originally Posted by aerovette

220, 221, whatever it takes.

[Yadkin]

You already have a geothermal well so add a circuit or zone and use that to heat your water. And move the new geothermal system to the garage where you can access it easily. Since you have a baller house and the last bathroom is 1/4 mile away, have the plumber run an insulated loop and circulation pump so hot water is near instant at all locations.

[JRD77VET]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

Get a gas water heater, before Brandon outlaws them, too.

Problem solved.

/thread

Originally Posted by Don Rickles

No natural gas in the area, it would have to be LP/Propane then I'd have to add a chimney...too much trouble....

Not true, when we switched to propane water heater, the exhaust was simply a PVC pipe drilled thru the cellar wall. It does have an electric fan to draw out the exhaust.

[Don Rickles]

Originally Posted by Yadkin

You already have a geothermal well so add a circuit or zone and use that to heat your water. And move the new geothermal system to the garage where you can access it easily. Since you have a baller house and the last bathroom is 1/4 mile away, have the plumber run an insulated loop and circulation pump so hot water is near instant at all locations.

I disconnected the water heater pre heat loop from the geothermal side years ago. It increased the amount of water and actually raised the electricity bill and caused premature pump failure…. My garage is about 200’ from my house so that’s a no go too….. Not a baller house, small historical stone building.

The tankless nearest the bathroom is a thought but as I said running a wire is a challenge…

Originally Posted by JRD77VET

Not true, when we switched to propane water heater, the exhaust was simply a PVC pipe drilled thru the cellar wall. It does have an electric fan to draw out the exhaust.

I just got an estimate for a sidewalk vented propane heater, so yes you are correct, it is an option.

[the new me]

If you have hard water, you're going to have to flush your water heater regularly. Somebody above suggested the use of a good ball valve instead of the one that comes with the water heater.

Maybe that same person suggested a zinc anode instead of aluminum.

I have two water heaters. One is in a low boy in the attic crawl space and it's a real pita to deal with. When the first one went out, it weighed around 300 lbs because it was full of hard water sediment because the previous owner had not solved the hard water issue.

I built a gantry crane with a 4x8, some appropriately-sized joist hangers, a Harbor Freight electric winch and some galvanized pipes rigged as rollers. It's built into the rafters in order to get that 300-lb heater out and the new much-lighter one in. Due to limitations of height in the attic crawl-space, the gantry crane has an angle to it, so I used a come-along to control the tendency of the water heater to rapidly roll downhill on the crane. Not to mention to winch the new heater uphill to its platform. The water heater was attached to the winch's hook using a makeshift harness made out of tie-down straps. (FWIW he gantry crane, along with the electric winch, the come-along and the tie-down straps are still in place up there in the event they are ever needed again.) I think if I need to deal with it again, I'll put in a tankless on-demand heater up there. But at least I'll be able to get the old heater out without too much hassle.

In addition to fixing the hard water issue, I did some other stuff:

Installed a good drain valve --- somebody above called it a full-bore drain valve.

I installed a powered anode instead of a zinc anode. The powered anode is powered by a low-voltage DC transformer (wall wart) using 120v AC which happens to be right near the electric water heater, wouldn't ya know? The powered anode is not sacrificial metal. Instead it gives up electrons that come from the power company so it in theory never wears out unless the wall wart power supply fails or God knows maybe some other possible failure mode. There are diagnostic lights on the top of the anode and there are test points on top of the anode so its condition can be assessed without removing it from the water heater.

Regarding flushing the in-attic water heater: As you probably already know, an in-attic water heater gets installed with a drip pan that is plumbed to an outflow pipe that leads outside your house exterior wall somewhere nearby-ish. Because it was a royal hassle to drag a hose up there and attach it to a drain valve, then run it outside, I rigged up a fix. I put a T in the line from the drip pan to outside. One part leads to outside. another part leads from the pan to the T and the other part leads from the water heater drain valve to the T. So all I have to do is open the drain valve and the water flows to outside without running a hose or any other hassle. I put in a stop valve between the drip pan and the T so that the rush of water from the drain doesn't end up flooding the drip pan. That valve stays open most of the time. It is only closed when I drain the heater. It is immediately opened again when the draining process is complete. There is no stop valve between the heater's drain valve and the T because so far I have never seen water flow uphill.

Arguably, instead of a stop valve I could have used a one-way backflow preventer, but I was concerned that a small amount of water coming from the drip pan might not be enough incentive for the backflow preventer to stay open. The risk of the stop valve is the possibility that one could forget to open it up again which, if left closed, could cause the drip pan to overflow in the attic instead of outside. If I was feeling extra lazy or extra spunky, depending on your point of view, I could have plumbed this stuff using electric valves from the heater to the T (leaving the heater's drain valve always open) and from the drip pan to the T that could be activated with the flick of a switch, but I was either a) too lazy to install such a thing or b) too chicken to rely on opening electric valves in my attic without personally inspecting the whole mess prior to each use. Mostly b. In any case, with very soft 0-grain hardness water, I don't find that I have to flush my water heater. And I'm very careful to open the drain pan valve after flushing.

This is the best source I've ever seen for all things water heater related:
https://www.waterheaterrescue.com
They are the source for the power anode I used:
https://www.waterheaterrescue.com/wa...hot-water.html

If you're dealing with hard water, they also offer the right drain valve (though you can get one at any plumber or home-improvement store) and they also offer a curved dip tube that helps the water swirl at the bottom of the heater when you're draining it, thus helping to encourage the sediment to exit via the drain valve. I don't have one, but probably would if I had hard water.

FWIW, I put a powered anode on my other water heater too, even though it's easy to get to, because sacrificial anodes only lasted a max of three years and I had to pay attention to them. Now I can just do occasional diagnostics.

You may notice that some water heater models have guarantees twice as long as similar models. The difference is that the longer-guaranteed models have two anodes. If you can put in a powered anode, your water heater will last a very very long time.

This setup has been going for about 13 years and so far no problems.

[sublime1996525]

I went through this a couple years ago. Gas water heater but the deposits are real. Hard water sucks. Now I’ve got a water softener