Weird Plumbing Problem; Any Plumbers in the House?

Factual Questions
1

I live in new mobile home in a good mobile home park.

Every couple of days or so, I’ll turn on the hot water and get nothing but air. Then I’ll shut it off, wait an hour, and then try again. The faucet will spurt and cough for a few seconds, and then hot water will flow freely again.

Also, from time to time, I’ll have no hot water to speak of. However, after I wait a few hours, the hot water will be back again, good as new.

I have two theories:
[ul]
[1]I have a cheap hot water heater (because it’s a factory model that came with my home).

[2]There’s some kind of disruption in the flow of water to my home, which causes my heater to empty its contents and shut itself off (perhaps to prevent a fire?).
[/ul]

Any plumbers in the house? Any homeowners experiencing similar problems?

2

When you get only air, have you tried leaving the faucet open for an hour, to see if any water eventually appears?

When you get only air, have you tried opening another hot water faucet somewhere else in the house? Sometimes pipes get air bubbles in them, which can disrupt proper water flow to other pipes in the house. If this doesn’t help, then…

Well, basically, here’s how plumbing works.

Water comes into your house in one big pipe, as cold water. It splits up into smaller pipes, taking the cold water to various places in your house, like the toilet, the sink, etc. One of the places it takes cold water is to the water heater. It fills up the water heater with cold water and the heater, whether gas or electric, heats the water. Then the water heater is connected to pipes which lead to a hot water faucet in your house. When you turn the “hot” faucet, hot water comes out.

If no water at all ever comes out, this means that there’s either a break or a clog in either the pipes that lead from the hot water heater to the faucet, or in the cold water pipes that lead to the hot water heater.

This calls for a plumber, IMO, because I have no clue how you’d diagnose and fix something like that.

The fact that a big spurt of air comes out, and then an hour later, water comes out, says to me that maybe there’s an air pocket or bubble in the system somewhere.

Also, is it the same faucet, that you first get only air out of, and then an hour later get water out of? Or is it doing this with all the hot water faucets in the house–kitchen sink, bathroom sink, bathtub, washing machine? If it’s just one faucet that does this, then it’s something wrong with that particular hot water pipe, possibly that it was installed in a hurry, too high up or too low down or at the wrong angle or something, and there’s chronically an air pocket in there. Mobile homes are mass-produced on an assembly line, with “modules” and “components”, and it’s not impossible that a plumbing module got put in wrong.

If only cold water ever comes out of the “hot” faucet, that means that your water heater is malfunctioning and is not heating the water. This calls for a trip down to your favorite purveyor of hot water heaters.

3

I would try opening all the hot water faucets in the house full blast and letting them run simultaneously for five minutes or so (don’t forget the washing machine).

4

The only way that the symtopms you describe can occur is if there is some leak that allows air to enter your hot water system AT SOME POINT DOWNSTREAM FROM THE SPLIT BETWEEN THE COLD WATER SUPPLY AND THE SUPPLY TO THE WATER HEATER since this doesn’t seem to affect your cold water faucets.

My guess is that you have a big air bubble in your water heater tank. Drain the tank and slowly refill it.

I’m a neurologist, but I used to be a plumber (a Journeyman, in fact). It paid my way through med school, and I still “practice” the trade…

5

I would look for an open spigot. (water tap) somewhere unobtrusive. Possibly a garden hose spigot that does not have a backflow preventer on it. You might even have an open or “sticky” overflow valve that does not close completely. Like others say, call a plumber. If it is a New Mobile Home, the plumbers call should be covered under warranty.

6

You might try this because I had a similar problem and my Dad told me to do this and it worked. (Dad’s are great aren’t they?)

Anyway, our kitchen faucet wasn’t spewing out water in the normal fashion so he instructed me to climb onto the roof and cup my hand over the vent pipe for the plumbing while my wife turned the water on.

This vent pipe on the roof relieves pressure that builds up in your plumbing. Sometimes a vacuum can occur in the pipes that disrupts the water flow – or some such nonsense.

Before cupping my hand on the vent pipe I could hear all kinds of gastrointestinal noises down in the pipe. When I cupped my hand on the vent pipe I could feel a slight suction. My wife reported to me that the water sputtered, gulped a few times and then spewed to life. Haven’t had to repeat this since.

All said and done, I don’t know whether me holding my hand on the vent pipe fixed it or my wife just turning the water on and off did but I had fun climbing around on the roof!

I don’t know if this will work for you but it’s worth a try.

-Waneman

7

Thanks for all the replys.

As it turns out, my handy-man stepfather and I have figured out a more mundane reason for the problem: the heating coil went out.

Anybody wanna loan me $50? :wink: :smiley: