On Tuesday, February 11, 2014 10:43:45 PM UTC-5, Robert Green wrote:
"Vic Smith" wrote in message
wrote:
stuff snipped
By now you've probably read about the things I intend to experiment with
to
nurse the heater along through the supercold weather. So far, so good
with
the pressure drop and I am about to do a load of laundry to measure the
fill
rate.
No, I'll go look.
Okay, you basically throttled down the input, and turned down the
water heat. Seems a drastic step to take to reduce the possibility
of thermal shock.
Drastic? DRASTIC????? Adding an expansion or tempering tank or putting fins
on the portion of the pipe from the main shut off/building inlet to the
water heater would be drastic. These are "fixes" that took nothing more
than the twist of a valve or a dial. (-: Not even a full twist, either.
But tinker if you want to. Cant hurt unless you screw up the valve.
I did the throttling bit once with an old gas furnace that was
throwing too much heat up the stack, but that was a different case.
I think you're making too much of it.
Another county heard from. Ironic since I am not advising anyone to do what
I am doing.
I'd agree with your assessment if you were living next door and I could grab
you during the middle of a serious snowstorm and get you to help me replace
the tank while saying "I told you so." But I doubt that any of the posters
who have claimed I am worrying too much is going to be standing beside me
helping me repair things in the bitter cold if they guessed incorrectly.
I got to quiz the plumber as he replaced the unit in my neighbor's home
today and he said they had almost three times the number of emergency calls
about water heaters as they normally do. Something about this incredibly
long, incredibly cold spell is resulting in aging water heaters having
"aneurysms" and failing at an accelerated rate. I've noticed that trend and
want to see if there's any way to keep myself from being that plumber's next
service call.
The shower massager still pulses (turns out to be an excellent informal
pressure gauge by accident!), the toilet's taking a little longer to fill
and the bathroom sink is unusually low-flow and probably indicates
something's amiss somewhere other than the screen. That fixed the low
flow
in the kitchen but not in the bathroom. So reducing pressure as a test
actually had a diagnostic side effect. It really slowed down the flow
from
screens clogged with spooge.
Don't think it was used to reduce "stress."
Probably not, but you're in a cold enough climate that you never know,
IIRC.
Probably to increase capacity for a smaller water heater.
You said "next to" the heater - was it in line before the heater or
after?
Before it might have indeed been a pretempering device.
Before. I removed it when I put a new WH in. It was old, and just
another failure point.
That's interesting because the plumber installed just such device today
before the water heater - it looked like a small propane tank. He said the
expansion tank was now required by code in the county. Might have been the
same for the tank you removed. Did it pass inspection after the change or
has it been inspected? IIRC, Chicago, like NYC, has some of the strictest
building and fire codes in the nation. I seem to recall that both cities
still require armored cable but they may have finally decided to embrace
Romex.
BTW, the water temp at the Lake Michigan intake crib whence my water
originates, is currently 32 F.
Don't know what the cold water Temp in the house is.
Except it's pretty cold.
Jeez, that ISs pretty damn cold! All the articles I've been reading about
burst pipes and water heater failures (sample below)
http://www.debordinc.com/pdf/sept_2010___Newsletter.pdf.
seem to agree that there are things you can do to extend the life of your
heater and turning down the thermostat is one of them.
Or to sell the "tempering" tank.
Yeah, what he just said. (-:
Only reason to have one nowadays is perhaps to "temper" water
for the on-demand type heaters.
Oh, 25 to 50 extra gallons of potable water on premises can't be a bad
idea,
overall. In DC, we worry about dirty bombs and other "cakes baked" by
those
with an anti-government agenda, foreign and domestic.
You're probably better off with a tempering tank to serve that "need."
I did a quick look and didn't see anybody selling them.
You need a tank able to withstand municipal water pressure.
Costly.
Agreed. Right now there's 25G of potable water stored in Nalgene tanks in
the old darkroom (that was converted to an animal hospice). A expansion
tank would insure that water's always fresh but I'd have to be able to pump
it out if the water's cut. But that would be a "drastic" solution. I want
to take some simple precautions to avoid experiencing my neighbor's fate.
Today, the plumber, when briefing my neighbors about their new heater,
warned them that the higher the tank temperature is set, the shorter the
tank's overall lifespan. The hotter the water, the faster corrosion takes
place. Also, the greater the temperature delta, the more the unit cycles
within a given time period. I alread discovered those facts reading about
heater failures, but it was good to know the plumber agreed.
So I rolled back the temperature AND the pressure until the normal weather
returns. Seems like a very simple, very un-drastic precaution to take when
an old, old water heater is exposed to inlet water colder than it's ever
seen in its entire service life. I can live with slightly cooler hot water
for a few days or weeks more. As long as it's warm enough to shower
comfortably (and it is) there's no big whoop. Since I've got a Floodstop
electrical master shut off valve AND a manual one, I am not afraid of
buggering the valve by adjusting it to compensate for the extreme cold.
While I don't think thermal stress is a great contributor to the
*overall*
wearing out of a water heater, what I've read so far convinces me that a
long bout of very unusually cold weather will kill off the weaker water
heaters in the herd. And by age alone, mine's a downer heater.
Speaking of euthanizing water heaters, how about that giraffe? I've
already
read two different versions. Killed by shotgun, killed by boltgun. I
love
the uncertainty of breaking news. (-:
By now you've *had* to have heard of the Copenhagen Zoo's serious public
relations nightmare. They're in more trouble than Chris Christie. (-:
Putting down "excess stock" makes me worry that one day when it's time to
retire the boss will say: "Vic, Bobby - your outtake interviews are in
room
one" and Anton Chigur from "No Country For Old Men" will be waiting in
there
with his compressed air tank. PFFFFT!
(Wouldn't that thing get all matted up with dried brain goo?)
I haven't followed it, but wonder why they don't use birth control to
avoid "excess stock."
So are a lot of people. People are also wondering why the zoo didn't take
up the several valid offers to accept the "surplus" giraffe instead of
chopping it up in front of zoo visitors. I suspect the zoo's director will
soon be retiring or looking for a new job. It's a classic case of
scientists getting so wrapped around the axle that they are unaware of how
their actions will look to non-scientists - in this case zoo patrons who are
far less concerned with inbreeding than they are with the concept of zoos
killing healthy animals that could *easily* have found a home elsewhere.
I don't see how they could be unaware. They were given a petition with
27,000 signatures saying not to kill the giraffe. The other thing I
don't see anyone talking much about is if they were so concerned about
inbreeding, they could have neutered the animal. The zoo did have some
lame excuse about that, saying that if you anesthetize a giraffe, it
may fall down and break it's neck. Seems the *chance* of that happening
is a hell of a lot better than just killing it. This is about as
dumb as it gets. It's just a bunch of eggheads insistant on following
the rules they've made up. When you have responsible zoos in other countries
willing to take the animal, eg England, no excuse for what they did.
IMO, until those responsible are fired, everyone should boycott the
zoo and keep the pressure up.