"LenS" wrote in message
...
Our gas water heater suddenly began overflowing tonight, perhaps half
an hour or so ago. I turned off the gas burner and shut off the water
supply. Id' say we have a couple of gallons of water on the floor.

The heater is overflowing from the top. That is, the water is coming
out from under the cover which is held on by several screws. There is
no water on top of the heater.

The heater was installed in 1997 by the previous owner of our house
and we've never had any problem with it before.

I don't know anything about water heaters so I haven't the slightest
idea of what happened.

Any comments, suggestions, etc. will be greatly appreciated. I'll call
a repair company tomorrow, but in the meantime I'll be checking back
here later tonight.

Thanks,

-Len

My water heater was installed in '98 and also started leaking at the top. I
think I died about a year past warrantee. but I had trouble with the gas
valve/ thermostat before that.
They pretty much self-destruct soon after the warrantee expires depending on
how hard your water is.
Look for date of manufacture and warrantee information printed on a label on
the water heater. The date code may be part of model or serial number or
something, (not the date on the ANSI standards declaration). For example
3597xxxx would mean built in the 35 week of 1997.

Kevin