We had a GE 60gallon (gas) hot water tank installed in our house two years
ago. It runs very well. A week ago, our family came to China for a
two-monh vacaion and will stay until the 5th of March. We shut off he
water supply before leaving the house, but forgot to shut off the gas. Now
I am worried because no more water will be supplied into the hot water
tank,and remaining water will be heated until dry. Is this an dangerous
situation? I am wondering if the hot water tank or the furnace has any
protection feature to shut off itself. Otherwise I 'll have to cancel my
vacation and go back to take care of that. Can anybody help to explain?
Thanks a lot.

As a closed system you don't have to worry about your waterheater running
dry.

DK

DragonKnight wrote:
As a closed system you don't have to worry about your waterheater running
dry.

DK


Yes. While you could have saved some energy by turning it off, there
is no place for the water to go, it won't run dry and will be fine.

Surely there's someone who you could have go over and check on it or turn it
off eh?

--
Steve Barker




"jennyzhu99" wrote in message
news:d989a3195d7f0bdb15fbad13d140ede0@homerepairli ve.com...
We had a GE 60gallon (gas) hot water tank installed in our house two years
ago. It runs very well. A week ago, our family came to China for a
two-monh vacaion and will stay until the 5th of March. We shut off he
water supply before leaving the house, but forgot to shut off the gas. Now
I am worried because no more water will be supplied into the hot water
tank,and remaining water will be heated until dry. Is this an dangerous
situation? I am wondering if the hot water tank or the furnace has any
protection feature to shut off itself. Otherwise I 'll have to cancel my
vacation and go back to take care of that. Can anybody help to explain?
Thanks a lot.

Steve Barker LT wrote:
Surely there's someone who you could have go over and check on it or turn it
off eh?

--

ideally set to vacation, but dont worry about it. if gone a long time
its best to have someone check on home, just in case.

someone tries to break in, furnace quits, moving drapes and collecting
junk gives home that lived in look, which helps deter vandals

On 2007-01-06, 01:00 Z, in
news:d989a3195d7f0bdb15fbad13d140ede0@homerepairli ve.com,
jennyzhu99 wrote:
We had a GE 60 gallon gas hot water tank installed in our house
two years ago. It runs very well. A week ago, our family came to
China for a two month vacation and will stay until March 5. We
shut off the water supply before leaving the house, but forgot to
shut off the gas. Now I am worried because no more water will be
supplied into the hot water tank, and the remaining water will be
heated until dry. Is this a dangerous situation? I am wondering if
the hot water tank or the furnace has any protection feature to
shut off itself. Otherwise I'll have to cancel my vacation and go
back to take care of that. Can anybody help to explain?

jennyzhu99: Did you leave any hot water faucet in your house not
completely closed (turned off)?

If all hot water faucets are completely closed, there's no way the
hot water vapor at the top of the full hot water heater tank can
escape from the system and evaporate. Therefore, the tank water
level cannot decrease over time. Therefore, it will continue, even
for years, to safely operate identically to the way it operates when
you are at home and not using your hot water. In other words, there
is no danger.

Even in the rare event of operating dry, I believe a correctly
designed hot water heater would have a safety thermocouple sensor,
thermal fuse, or otherwise be able to detect local overheating, and
shut itself off.

But next time, turn the hot water heater control to "Vacation" mode,
which eliminates high heating and pressure, saves energy, but at the
same time, prevents the tank water from freezing by maintaining a
water temperature of only 13 degrees C.

By the way, unless you live in a very hot climate, did you leave
your house air heating system on with the thermostat set to 13 deg C
(55 deg F) during winter months, to prevent water pipes from
freezing? During warm months, leave the house air cooling system
thermostat set to 32 or perhaps 34 deg C.