sacrificial anode

What is popular there, gas, electric, oil?

Gas for house and water heating, and sometimes wood stoves in the countryside. Nobody here near the coast has residential air conditioning.

We have a few little (2 gallon?) electric water heaters at work, below the sinks in the bathrooms, but that's just for washing hands.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom timing and laser controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer 
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

Just curious, since we have two propane water heaters and unfortunately they are inside the house in utility closets: Was that a slow leak or more like a *KAPOOF* style gusher?

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

We've always had water softeners, so we've had only slow leaks from gradual rust-outs, typically at 15 years.

This "new" house (1994) has water heater in garage, but washing machine inside the house, in a depressed flooring area with its own drain. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 
              
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Don't know his details. Ours did that, sprayed a lot of water out the top, at the outlet pipe, about 10 years ago. It was 9/11/2001, and I had to stay at home that day while the plumbers installed a new water heater. I saw, live on TV, the second plane hit the WTC, and I saw the buildings collapse. That's one of those "do you remember where you were when..." moments.

We have a couple of small electric water heaters in the bathrooms here at work, maybe 5 years old. One did the same thing, developed a spray-type leak.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com 

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom laser drivers and controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro   acquisition and simulation

Our water is not very aggressive so I am hoping for a graceful failure as well if that happens.

That's how they used to do it out here, in the 80's and mostly with a small tiled dam around the washer. But no more. Our house is from 1970 so doesn't have that either.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

I think we all remember that day, and where we were. I sure do. Sometimes I wear my remembrance T-shirt.

It wouldn't make a difference if nobody is home, it'll flood. But since I work from here I'd probably notice a small leak, while with a large one all bets may be off. By the time you get down there it's all hosed.

When one of the toilet tanks cracked we noticed it in time. The water had slowly made it into the hallway which was carpeted but I wanted to replace that with tile anyhow, and did. Had it reached one of the rooms though ...

It was amazing. The tank was fine for about 35 years and then one evening it decided that this is the day.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Usually one can see a problem before it goes completely. Of course, this assumes you're in the habit of looking at your water heater.

Both of mine (two houses) sit in metal pans with a hose running outside. If it's a slow leak, all is well, but it wouldn't take too much of a spurt to escape the pan (it's about 4" bigger than the WH.

Some condo associations require that WHs be replaced every five years. They figure the warranty is a good estimate of the useful life. It can be a serious problem.

I'm considering moving one of them (the new house) from a raised alcove in the garage to the basement. It would be closer to the bathrooms (it's probably

50' from the heater to the master) and if it leaks in the walk-out basement it wouldn't be a major disaster.

here we have a "water watch" on the water inlet, if there is a slow constant leak or a programmable number of liters is exceeded in one go (to allow for showers and such) it shuts off and you have to reset

has a vacation button so the limit can be reduced when not home for while

-Lasse

Hmm, how do you look at it? From the outside they look ok.

That gets expensive.

Smart move. Wish I could do that here.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

That's pretty good but in America it would need a remote-disable. Because we have irrigation systems that can easily run for 1-2h, at fairly constant low flow if it's a drip system. It would look like a perfect leak to the device.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

I think all the trigger limits are programmable, and you can set time periods during the day where it shouldn't trigger

-Lasse

There are leak/spill alarms. They basically consist of a salted gauze tape with adhesive backing that you connect to an alarm system of some sort, PLC controller or whatever. I suspect the tapes are not expensive at all, and this being an electronics group, readers can probably figure out the rest. My guess is a transistor and resistor plus battery and Sonalert would probably do it.

Jon

At our cabin in the Sierras, we just turn the water off when nobody is there. It's on the exit checklist. We set the heat to 45F too, double-protection against the pipes freezing. I butchered the thermostat so that the heat can't be turned off.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com 

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom laser drivers and controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro   acquisition and simulation

It's time to install water sensors driving an electric water shutoff valve. Set it up to accept several sensors. Oh, and have it call your cellphone, a lot of water can drip even after the water is shut off. Maybe open up a faucet to dump any pressure to slow things down. Or, just clean up the mess.

I've replaced two water heaters in the last 18 years. We had to replace one, just months after moving into the house, luckily it was still under warranty, so got the new one free. Then after 17 years that one started leaking, so I replaced that one. Both were what I would call slow leaks, but the water heater is in the garage, so any water was not a big deal. If it had been in an inside closet, I may not have seen water till I was walking on squishy carpets.

Mikek

sure, but for a home turning the water on and off all the time is not so practical, and even a few hours is a lot of water if you really have a broken pipe

I even think we get a discount on insurance

-Lasse

That's going to be a major project. Lasse's water stop device would be better. Maybe next time I am over in Europe I should look for it. Not sure how to plumb it in with US pipe threads though, there ain't much space to work in at the water main.

Sounds like the plan :-)

We have dogs. They usually tell you when anything is ever so slightly out of the ordinary. When we had a small mess downstairs our (late) Rottweiler stood up from his usual spot by the fireplace, held his nose into the air, headed down the stairs, came back up, looked at us, headed straight back down again and did not come back. Then we knew something wasn't alright down there.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Interesting. I sometimes thought about building that but next time I am in Europe (usually Germany) I'll look for one of those.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Over the years, between my home and apartments that I've owned, I've had a number of gas water heaters leak. It has always been a slow leak, on the inner (heat exchanger) surface. Slow, but enough to put out the pilot and the no-hot-water alerted us to the problem before there was anything more than a puddle to clean up.

YMMV, of course, Bob