longshot..hot water heater installation water flow problem

[anonymous6]

it's sunday and plumbing supply places and plumbers are closed and i installed a new hot water heater.

all water connections correct. yes the inlet connector goes to the cold nipple of the water heater.

purged atr from system by leaving all hot water faucets on, running cold water for awhile and then filling up tank.

instructions said that once the water heater is completely filled the water will come out of hot water faucetts at normal pressure which it did.

i turned off all faucetts but the water is coming out thry the top hot water connection to the drain under the house!!!

i haven't fired up the burner yet until i solve this water flow problem. any plumbers out here???

I thought the water should not go thru the hot water out pipe except when a hot water faucett is on like before with the old one. instead it is going to the drain pipe under the house. the same one that the pressure valve pipe from the water heater goes to i believe.

i checked the pressure valve operation and i think it works properly. there was no outflow from it unless i opened it.

any help would be appreciated.

p.s. i googled the problem , checked utube and diy too and can't find this problem anywhere.

 

[serenity now]

from what you have said all i can come up with is: maybe your pressure relief valve is stuck open

 

[cachsux]

If its coming out that pipe and nowhere else it has to be a bad valve.

 

[oldngray]

When I installed my water heater one of the steps was to test the pressure relief valve. They can be bad from the beginning.

 

[anonymous6]

tested the valve ....OK.

found out that at the end of the drain pipe under the house there is ball check valve and it was faulty. 8 bucks and now everything is OK. the guy at hardware store said everyon should check this pipe end periodically. when dirt gets between the ball and end, it leaks. mine was 25 years old. it was wet under the house before i put the water on to heater so it appears it was leaking for awhile. i was wondering why my water bill was slightly up and the water heater came on more frequently than it used to.

thanks everyone.

 

[raceanoncr]

As an aside to this, and too late for you, puteh, is a tankless system.

Heard about this on Gary Sullivan show and wasn't impressed. Said it could cut yer gas/elec/water bills way down. Didn't care. Initial cost high, takes a long time to recover. Still didn't care.

My heater went out. Thot, "What the hell". Am trying to update everything in here before I croak.

Had for bout 2 yrs now. Love it! Still ain't checked Util bills. Don't care. BUT, you got hot water ALL the time! We got large whirlpool bath in one room. Used to be, by the time that thing was filled, tank was MT of hot water. Had to start all over again. If you were in there with jets for length of time, no hot water to refresh.

I like to take long, LONG showers. Never run out.

Small unit (yes, I said UNIT!) sits on wall, off floor. Freeing floor space. Didn't know I was gonna have flood in '11. If heater had been on floor, woulda buried lower part, including pilot, etc. in water. Everyone else w/basement had to move from 'hood cuz heater and elec panel submerged. We" Main panel out in garage, heater off floor, furnace suspended off floor.

Do it again? In a heartbeat! For those comptemplating...look into it.

 

[anonymous6]

As an aside to this, and too late for you, puteh, is a tankless system.

Heard about this on Gary Sullivan show and wasn't impressed. Said it could cut yer gas/elec/water bills way down. Didn't care. Initial cost high, takes a long time to recover. Still didn't care.

My heater went out. Thot, "What the hell". Am trying to update everything in here before I croak.

Had for bout 2 yrs now. Love it! Still ain't checked Util bills. Don't care. BUT, you got hot water ALL the time! We got large whirlpool bath in one room. Used to be, by the time that thing was filled, tank was MT of hot water. Had to start all over again. If you were in there with jets for length of time, no hot water to refresh.

I like to take long, LONG showers. Never run out.

Small unit (yes, I said UNIT!) sits on wall, off floor. Freeing floor space. Didn't know I was gonna have flood in '11. If heater had been on floor, woulda buried lower part, including pilot, etc. in water. Everyone else w/basement had to move from 'hood cuz heater and elec panel submerged. We" Main panel out in garage, heater off floor, furnace suspended off floor.

Do it again? In a heartbeat! For those comptemplating...look into it.

thanks.
we seriously looked into it but the time of cost recovery was way too long. our cost now is $40 a month and now is gonna go down because of a much more efficient heater. we use wood heat for the house. that costs about $30 a year in wood permits and i love the work/exercise.

our electric is $60 a month. we have a generator for emergencies. and i got the water heater at cost cause my son works at the store. other than the water leak which was resolved there was no cost and no cost other than my labor to install.

i think the next one will be solar. by the time we are ready for it , the solar will be reasonable in cost.

 

[BSWALKS]

thanks.
we seriously looked into it but the time of cost recovery was way too long. our cost now is $40 a month and now is gonna go down because of a much more efficient heater. we use wood heat for the house. that costs about $30 a year in wood permits and i love the work/exercise.

our electric is $60 a month. we have a generator for emergencies. and i got the water heater at cost cause my son works at the store. other than the water leak which was resolved there was no cost and no cost other than my labor to install.

i think the next one will be solar. by the time we are ready for it , the solar will be reasonable in cost.

Another thing to remember for water heaters is to just go ahead & replace every 8-10 years. I lucked out when my last one went, I just happened to check it before we went on vacation. It had just started leaking, so I only had a gallon or so to clean up.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I had to replace my hot water heater last summer. The heating element had failed. The plumber tried to replace the element but it had calcified to the point where he could not loosen it, even when he added a length of pipe to the wrench for additional leverage. I would have loved to have gone tankless but the cost comparison just did not justify it.

 

[oldngray]

It seems to me a water heater calcifies minutes after you install it. Not really that fast but its amazing how quickly it happens. I will just have to cut the copper pipe when I replace mine.