It seems to have accidentally triggered Friday night. Luckily, there were people in the house to mitigate the damage, but now we don’t have any hot water.
Nothing on the hot water heater itself mentions an automatic hot water release, except for a little tag on the tubing that says the release should be tested every year to check for mineral deposits.
My landlord’s shuffling his feet and keeps telling us he’s sending his “guy” to come see, but he never arrived.
Does anyone want to try and diagnose this? I’m prepared now to turn the water heater back on, since I have buckets and the like… (plus, any more water that leaks would be from the municipal supply, since there’s no more in the tank)
What you call the “hot water release” is called a temperature/pressure relief valve.
It’s supposed to open if either the water temperature or water pressure exceed established limits. Prior to the invention of this device it was not too unusual for water heaters to blowup and do serious damage. The Mythbusters had a great show on this very subject in the last year or so.
It’s possible all you need is a new valve assembly, but it may be that the heaters thermostat has failed and the water’s getting hot enough to boil. If that’s the case the valve may be good, but just doing it’s job.
Replacement valves are available at “big box” stores such as Home Depot or Lowes and they are easy to install as they thread right in. But there’s a down tube that is attached to the valve and you may need to cut that off and reinstall on the new valve. It could be cut off a few inches below the current valve and reattached to the new valve with a compression fitting. The tube is most likely attached to the valve with a threaded adapter which can be reused.
And if there’s no water in the tank? You need to ensure that the tank is filled up before applying power, or gas, again. Other wise you could damage the electric elements or the tank itself if it’s gas.
If your landlord is dragging his feet, you might check your local landlord-tenant laws. Where I have managed properties in Washington state, a landlord cannot allow a tenant to be without heating, hot water or working toilet for more than 24 hours.
It is conceivable that the release valve was manually tripped by accident. For example, if you store things nearby the water heater, they can press on it or get snagged. All you’d have to do to fix that would be to reset the valve, but I suppose you’ve probably tried that already.
Before pressure relief, I had a water heater blow up… 15 gallons of steaming water cascaded to the kitchen floor in an instant. It quickly began condensing on the ceiling. Then it started raining in the kitchen.
Tell your shuffling landlord that if he doesn’t respond to your need immediately, you will have it fixed and deduct the cost from your next rent payment.
