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SERVICE & SET-UP Water Heaters 101 BYGEORGE PORTER The first water heater I first ever saw in one of our homes was called a Speed-a-matic (I think, it has been a while). It was a steel beer keg sort of thing with toaster elements in it. The ele- ments just stuck in the hollow tubes in the side of the little barrel and got hot. We have come a ways since then but I have to say it was easy to fix and it did make hot water, but not too much at one time. Amodern hot water heater can be fairly com- plicated and can run on several fuels….even the sun. For this series of articles we will limit our discussion to two types; gas and electric. One problem that all water heaters have in common is that it can leak water and some day it absolutely will. When it leaks water you will know it because there will be a wet floor some- where near it. Hopefully the home owner looks in on it at least every few months to see if rust streaks are forming around fittings or the bottom of the tank. They all fail eventually so they all should have a pan under them so you can spot a little leak before it becomes a big leak. When one of these things really lets go and continues for a few days it can cost thousands to repair and a new water heater is the cheapest part. Floors, walls, carpets, furniture, insulation and mold remediation. It is a bad, bad day. Catching this early means a lot less trouble and expense. When your faucet drips it goes into the drain and you can get a little lazy about fixing it. Water heaters are different. First of all you never see them so you don't easily notice the drip. Second, there is no drain under it usually and it goes into the home. There are actually alarm systems for water heaters that detect water in the pan under the unit and will sound off like a smoke alarm.Only the very smartest of people have these BEFORE the first disaster. Lots of people have them after a big water heater prob- lem. Another common problem that can happen is more of an inconvenience really. All water OCTOBER 2012 14 THE JOURNAL heaters have an inlet and an outlet connection. All water heaters have these connections clearly labeled so you would think that getting these connections backward would be impossible, right? If you believe this you must be very new and unfamiliar with Murphy and his law. Of course it happens! Especially when the two con- nections are side by side in the top of the heater. Here is what happens; you energize the heater and the homeowner has hot water coming out of the faucet when you check it out. So it must be working? Well maybe…If you really want to be sure you need to go to the heater and feel the outlet pipe to see if it is hot when the hot water is flowing in the house. If the hot water is run- ning and the pipe is cold it is hooked up back- wards. "So what?" you may say; they seem to have hot water so what is the problem? Try to take a bath and you will find out. A 50-gallon hot water heater hooked up backwards may only yield 5 to 10 -gallons of hot water before it starts to get cold again. It is drawing off the bottom of the tank and that is where all the cold inlet water sinks to. Heat rises and all water heaters must draw from the top. That inlet connection has a pipe inside the tank that goes to the bottom so the hot water in the top is undisturbed. Speaking of outlets, are you familiar with the termthermal siphon? Remember heat rises even when it is water. So if your outlet pipe goes straight up out of the heater the hot water will rise up the pipe right out of the tank. It heats the pipe and the surrounding area and is generally lost energy. The somebody that is paying for this could have a slightly lower bill if they had used one cheap little trick. Put a loop about the size of a ping pong paddle in the outlet pipe. When heat can rise no more it stops and it stops at the top of the loop and does not go down the pipe in a siphon. Of course you turn on a hot water spigot and it does flow around the loop and to wherever it is called for. All hot water heaters heat water in a container of some sort and this "cooking" can create some strange problems. First of all not all water going into a heater is the same. In some places water has different acidity or alkali make up. Others have high iron content and some have sulfur content. Sulfur stinks and iron destroys heating elements in electric water heaters. All water heaters have what is called a sacrificial anode and it helps with these problems. The anode dis- solves instead of the parts of the water heater thereby making the expensive parts last longer. They do not last forever. Normally they will last as long as the tank but under sever conditions they will dissolve faster. If you have high sulfur content in your water it will dissolve the anode very fast. The actual compound in the water is hydrogen sulfide. As the anode decomposes fromthe action of the hydrogen sulfide it releases hydrogen gas into the tank. It takes about two weeks to accumulate enough of this hydrogen gas to start to matter. "Is hydrogen bad for me" you may ask? Have you ever heard of something called the Hindenburg? Yes, what you are thinking is true! If you had the right conditions in your lowly water heater and didn't turn on the hot water spigot for 3 or 4 weeks you could have a good amount of hy- drogen coming out the spigot! All it would take is a spark and whoom! If this happens without a spark then the water just spurts a bit fromthe gas and nobody notices anything. Just thought you might want to know what is making the spurts when the system has been idle for a while. More next month. TJ George Porter is a consultant to the manufactured housing in- dustry. His Company is Manufactured Housing Resources, P.O. Box 9, Nassau, DE 19969, (302) 645 5552, Web: www.george-porter.com. Some of his services are both in per- son and On-line training for certification in many states plus expert witness and investigation for the industry.