RANT: 6am this morning wife says "No Hot Water"

Actually, no water from the Hot side of the faucets. Cold side good. Me: !@#$% ^%$&!

Get to the Water Heater and silence the beeping Alarm and hear the Leak Detector Valve OPENING allowing water to flow into the water heater. Solid (not Blinking) Red LED indicates Service Needed. 50 gallon water heater is sitting on an OSB shelf 1 foot off the floor. OSB is wet. NO signs of leak any place, everything is dry, SO, IT'S LEAKING FROM UNDERSIDE OF WATER HEATER.. GOOD part of this: Leak Detection valve works. BAD part, we have good water, why is this leak happening on a 5 year old water heater.

PRAISE: Quick call to Rheem Customer Support. Within 2 minutes I have a return authorization E-Mail for the water heater (new in 2019, 12 year leak warranty) and pick up a new one. Great! Damn, I stupidly sold my truck, so my Son In Law is going to help me with the transport. Water Heater replacement is a DIY job for me, so no big deal. Gotta reset the Leak Detector every 24 hours until I get the job done, again, no big deal.

Kudos to Rheem Customer Support.

While you're swapping out the water heater, spend a few bucks to buy a pan to stick under it. That'll catch the water from the next leak, rather than it soaking the OSB and weakening/ruining it.

And depending on your setup, you can run a PVC drain line from the pan to somewhere less damaging, to prevent the pan from overflowing. In my current house I have a dedicated drain line that runs outside through the wall, but in my last house it was just a foot or so run down to the cement garage floor.

Darn good idea and one I already plan to doing this time when I pick up the new (HOT) water heater I don't want to drain the catch pan because that may prevent the LEAK DETECTOR from sensing the leak.

Pans generally have the drain outlet a quarter inch or more above the bottom. So it has to fill up to that level before it starts to drain. It's intended to let a filling pan drain before overflowing onto the wood, not to immediately drain and keep the pan dry at all times.

Your leak detector alarm should still work with that.

My plumber put a plastic pallet like thing under mine it was replaced. Dont know who makes it.

have any details on that leak detector? That sounds like a good idea. In my last house, the pan was lined to the outside in case it did leak.

In this last house in a new state, there's a requirement for a drip pan which wasn't there so I had one installed but no requirement for a pipe from the drip pan to a drain.

Leak detector came preinstalled on my Rheem Gladiator Water Heater.i know there is a sensor on the bottom of the unit and, I believe, at the heating element exterior. The presence of water trips the circuit and the cold water inlet is shut off immediately.

I can see where an overflow hose would be helpful in the event of a catastrophic failure allowing 50 gallons to release quickly.

One other thing, if I would have had the "Smart" water heater connected to my wifi I would have gotten the alert on my phone.

We also put an expansion tank on water heater, not sure but it might be code with new installations in this area.

100% on the pan. I had a similar issue at my last house (have a tankless now); a pin hole had actually started leaking in a weld towards the top of the heater, but because of the casing it ran down inside the insulation and was coming out of the bottom.

I don't recall seeing any newer installs that DIDN'T have an expansion tank.

This afternoon I noticed much more water under the water heater, like moving. Quick, run to Home Depot, identical model in stock. Quick call to my helpful neighbor, old one drained, disconnected and on his truck and 2 miles to HD. Load new one, set in the leak drain pan, install the new water heater, and we were up and running. Thank God for a good neighbor. We picked up the new one at 604pm and turned on the power after the tank was full before 7pm.

No plumber, no electrician, no supervision, just two guys doing the job, getting er done.

Our tiny town, no code requirement for an expansion tank. Next town south requires them.

That neighbor deserves a bottle of something nice! Good neighbors are few and far between.

Had to replace mine this year, but since it was 43 years old, I wasn't too put out.

You had a water heater last 43 years?!

Dang. That's gotta be some kinda record.

Are you feeding it solely distilled and triple-filtered water?

quote:

Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
Our tiny town, no code requirement for an expansion tank. Next town south requires them.

No Thermal Expansion Tank could very well be the reason your Water Heater failed after only 5 years! Just sayin'

Long story told short. 2nd water heater failed January 2nd, Replaced on January 3rd. Rheem paid for a plumber to replace.