Hi all,

since my basement is currently a mess due to last Friday's incident with
my water heater's T&P valve, I figured I'd go ahead and do some plumbing
maintenance before final clean-up. First order of business; replace the
drain valves on the two water heaters in the basement, since one of them
wouldn't shut all the way (has had a garden hose cap on it since my
ill-advised attempt to drain the gravel out of it) and the other's
handle was busted off. I got the first one out easily, and had a
"replacement" already made up and ready to jam in (dielectric nipple,
3/4" ball valve, 3/4" to garden hose fitting) I didn't make too much of
a mess. OK, one down, one to go. The second is on the gas heater, and
it's conveniently located between the gas control and the floor, so
there's no room to get any tools in there. Unfortunately when draining
this heater (opened valve with water pump pliers) I found that now this
valve too has gravel stuck in it, so *it* is currently capped off.
There's only one angle at which I can get a pipe wrench on this valve,
and when I try to unscrew it from the tank, it starts loosening my
garden hose cap as well as the packing nut on the spigot, without
budging the valve itself at all.

Any ideas of another tool I could possibly use to unscrew this valve?
or should I just have my friend weld me something up on an old socket?
I really want to replace it so I can move on to the next order of
business, examining the anode so that I can determine whether it's worth
buying a new anode or simply time for replacement tank. I'm sure there
is something that will work, but I'm a little damp and frustrated at the
moment so I'm not coming up with any good ideas.

I highly recommend the ball valve replacement for the drain valve BTW.
You wouldn't believe all the gravel I got out of the first water heater,
and I flushed it (through the little plastic valve) less than a year
ago. There were chunks coming out that would never have fit through the
little plastic valve. I'm sure if I could do the same treatment to the
gas heater I'd have much more efficient heating of my water... (got the
idea from http://www.waterheaterrescue.com/ thanks to a link posted here)

please help, I dream of a day where I can do an annual flush of my water
heaters without "special instructions" and a minor flood in the basement

nate

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How does the gravel get in your water heater? Have you considered a whole
house water filter?

I have gravel in my cottage water heater also. The heater is 22 years old
and I assume the gravel predates when filters were first put on it.

Toller wrote:
How does the gravel get in your water heater? Have you considered a whole
house water filter?

I have gravel in my cottage water heater also. The heater is 22 years old
and I assume the gravel predates when filters were first put on it.


I'm assuming it's just minerals in the water precipitating out, but I've
never put much thought into it. Just moved into this house a year ago,
so who knows if the heaters were ever flushed before I moved in? Anyway
it's easy enough (with good valves) to let a couple gallons out through
a hose once a year.

nate


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"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...
Toller wrote:
How does the gravel get in your water heater? Have you considered a
whole house water filter?

I have gravel in my cottage water heater also. The heater is 22 years
old and I assume the gravel predates when filters were first put on it.

I'm assuming it's just minerals in the water precipitating out, but I've
never put much thought into it. Just moved into this house a year ago, so
who knows if the heaters were ever flushed before I moved in? Anyway it's
easy enough (with good valves) to let a couple gallons out through a hose
once a year.

I have actual gravel in mine. Okay, maybe it is just really really big
sand, but still...

Joseph Meehan wrote:

I would suggest that once you are in that situation, I would just
seal the drain valve as best I could and leave it alone. In most
situations it is already too late to do much good by regular draining.

The replacement heaters should be better quality and come with ball
valves or if not, put them on before you turn on the water the first time.

If you are going to try and replace what you have, remember that you
could do more damage than good and not be able to get the new one
installed.

I'm four for four so far... (T&P valve on gas heater, drain valves on
solar heater and electric heater in garage, and pulled anode in garage
heater for inspection) so I'm feeling froggy. Of course, the heater in
the garage is only a year old, I was replacing the drain valve on that
and looking at the anode (and reinstalling it with pipe dope so it stays
free) to hopefully prevent the problem I'm having with the other two.
Speaking of which, I was really impressed - it's a small State water
heater and it appears that the top of the anode is stainless steel!
Nice touch. Wonder why the tanks aren't typically made of stainless...
or are they, and they just rust anyway? I haven't seen a single HWH
tank that comes with a ball type drain valve as standard equipment, am I
not shopping at high class enough stores?


My method has been to turn off the heat and make sure the water is
not much more than warm when I start. Next shut off the water inlet and
outlet.

Well, see, that's part of the problem. there are no valves on the
outlet sides of any of the water heaters except for the garage (because
I made the guy that installed it put one in.) So if I want to do
ANYTHING to these heaters, I have no way to drain them down enough to
mess with the anode or T&P valve other than opening the T&P valves
themselves (and I have to drain the whole house down, although that
wasn't a bad thing this time around, as I assume that I've now restored
the function of all the air columns,) and the T&P valves aren't properly
plumbed at this time. So I'd like to have functional drain valves so at
a minimum I can drain the system down again (without creating another
mess,) put ball valves on the outlets of the heaters, and also an
emergency bypass around both the solar heater and gas heater (so I can
run off one or the other only if one of them develops an issue.)

Now, with luck you can unscrew the existing valve and then
quickly screw in the new valve you have already removed from the box and
readied to screw in. Note: This method might not be the best idea if
you are in a finished basement surrounded with materials that could be
damaged if they get we.


Nope, just ugly vinyl peel 'n' stick tile that needs to come up anyway.
That's basically how I handled the solar heater and it worked out
fine. Had a towel on the floor to catch most of the mess and cleaned up
the rest with a shop vac. If I could only break this other valve loose...

Just got an idea, maybe I could use a ball joint pickle fork and a pipe
wrench to catch this valve - it's one of those brass spigot deals with
the spigot and hose connection both 45 degrees off the axis of the
inlet. I tried my tie rod pickle fork and it is too small... can't try
it now though as the ball joint one is at my friend's garage...

Good Luck.

thanks, I'll need it I'm sure.

Worst case, I'll have to get a new water heater, which wouldn't be the
end of the world, I was just hoping to avoid the expense.

nate


"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...

Hi all,

since my basement is currently a mess due to last Friday's incident
with my water heater's T&P valve, I figured I'd go ahead and do some
plumbing maintenance before final clean-up. First order of business;
replace the drain valves on the two water heaters in the basement,
since one of them wouldn't shut all the way (has had a garden hose cap
on it since my ill-advised attempt to drain the gravel out of it) and
the other's handle was busted off. ...




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On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 17:07:21 -0400, Nate Nagel
wrote:

Hi all,

since my basement is currently a mess due to last Friday's incident with
my water heater's T&P valve, I figured I'd go ahead and do some plumbing
maintenance before final clean-up. First order of business; replace the
drain valves on the two water heaters in the basement, since one of them
wouldn't shut all the way (has had a garden hose cap on it since my
ill-advised attempt to drain the gravel out of it) and the other's
handle was busted off. I got the first one out easily, and had a
"replacement" already made up and ready to jam in (dielectric nipple,
3/4" ball valve, 3/4" to garden hose fitting) I didn't make too much of
a mess. OK, one down, one to go. The second is on the gas heater, and
it's conveniently located between the gas control and the floor, so
there's no room to get any tools in there. Unfortunately when draining
this heater (opened valve with water pump pliers) I found that now this
valve too has gravel stuck in it, so *it* is currently capped off.
There's only one angle at which I can get a pipe wrench on this valve,
and when I try to unscrew it from the tank, it starts loosening my
garden hose cap as well as the packing nut on the spigot, without
budging the valve itself at all.

Any ideas of another tool I could possibly use to unscrew this valve?
or should I just have my friend weld me something up on an old socket?
I really want to replace it so I can move on to the next order of
business, examining the anode so that I can determine whether it's worth
buying a new anode or simply time for replacement tank. I'm sure there
is something that will work, but I'm a little damp and frustrated at the
moment so I'm not coming up with any good ideas.

I highly recommend the ball valve replacement for the drain valve BTW.
You wouldn't believe all the gravel I got out of the first water heater,
and I flushed it (through the little plastic valve) less than a year
ago. There were chunks coming out that would never have fit through the
little plastic valve. I'm sure if I could do the same treatment to the
gas heater I'd have much more efficient heating of my water... (got the
idea from http://www.waterheaterrescue.com/ thanks to a link posted here)

please help, I dream of a day where I can do an annual flush of my water
heaters without "special instructions" and a minor flood in the basement

nate

Why not check the anode first. If you might replace the tank, why
bother with the valve now. The garden hose cap should be fine for
awhile, and probably for the remaining life of the tank. You could
also connect a hose and drain it more so the gravel comes out. Then
try to replace the washer in the valve.

Why do you have 2 water heaters anyhow?

wrote:
On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 17:07:21 -0400, Nate Nagel
wrote:


Hi all,

since my basement is currently a mess due to last Friday's incident with
my water heater's T&P valve, I figured I'd go ahead and do some plumbing
maintenance before final clean-up. First order of business; replace the
drain valves on the two water heaters in the basement, since one of them
wouldn't shut all the way (has had a garden hose cap on it since my
ill-advised attempt to drain the gravel out of it) and the other's
handle was busted off. I got the first one out easily, and had a
"replacement" already made up and ready to jam in (dielectric nipple,
3/4" ball valve, 3/4" to garden hose fitting) I didn't make too much of
a mess. OK, one down, one to go. The second is on the gas heater, and
it's conveniently located between the gas control and the floor, so
there's no room to get any tools in there. Unfortunately when draining
this heater (opened valve with water pump pliers) I found that now this
valve too has gravel stuck in it, so *it* is currently capped off.
There's only one angle at which I can get a pipe wrench on this valve,
and when I try to unscrew it from the tank, it starts loosening my
garden hose cap as well as the packing nut on the spigot, without
budging the valve itself at all.

Any ideas of another tool I could possibly use to unscrew this valve?
or should I just have my friend weld me something up on an old socket?
I really want to replace it so I can move on to the next order of
business, examining the anode so that I can determine whether it's worth
buying a new anode or simply time for replacement tank. I'm sure there
is something that will work, but I'm a little damp and frustrated at the
moment so I'm not coming up with any good ideas.

I highly recommend the ball valve replacement for the drain valve BTW.
You wouldn't believe all the gravel I got out of the first water heater,
and I flushed it (through the little plastic valve) less than a year
ago. There were chunks coming out that would never have fit through the
little plastic valve. I'm sure if I could do the same treatment to the
gas heater I'd have much more efficient heating of my water... (got the
idea from http://www.waterheaterrescue.com/ thanks to a link posted here)

please help, I dream of a day where I can do an annual flush of my water
heaters without "special instructions" and a minor flood in the basement

nate


Why not check the anode first.

'cause I can't drain down the tank!

If you might replace the tank, why
bother with the valve now.

It's just work, and I can always salvage it from the tank if it goes to
the scrapper. I also would like to add valves so I can isolate/bypass
either water heater, and I can't do that without draining the tanks,
which I can't easily do without working valves.

The garden hose cap should be fine for
awhile, and probably for the remaining life of the tank. You could
also connect a hose and drain it more so the gravel comes out. Then
try to replace the washer in the valve.

Why do you have 2 water heaters anyhow?

One is solar, and feeds the other (gas.)

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

On Oct 28, 5:34?am, Nate Nagel wrote:
wrote:
On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 17:07:21 -0400, Nate Nagel
wrote:

Hi all,

since my basement is currently a mess due to last Friday's incident with
my water heater's T&P valve, I figured I'd go ahead and do some plumbing
maintenance before final clean-up. First order of business; replace the
drain valves on the two water heaters in the basement, since one of them
wouldn't shut all the way (has had a garden hose cap on it since my
ill-advised attempt to drain the gravel out of it) and the other's
handle was busted off. I got the first one out easily, and had a
"replacement" already made up and ready to jam in (dielectric nipple,
3/4" ball valve, 3/4" to garden hose fitting) I didn't make too much of
a mess. OK, one down, one to go. The second is on the gas heater, and
it's conveniently located between the gas control and the floor, so
there's no room to get any tools in there. Unfortunately when draining
this heater (opened valve with water pump pliers) I found that now this
valve too has gravel stuck in it, so *it* is currently capped off.
There's only one angle at which I can get a pipe wrench on this valve,
and when I try to unscrew it from the tank, it starts loosening my
garden hose cap as well as the packing nut on the spigot, without
budging the valve itself at all.

Any ideas of another tool I could possibly use to unscrew this valve?
or should I just have my friend weld me something up on an old socket?
I really want to replace it so I can move on to the next order of
business, examining the anode so that I can determine whether it's worth
buying a new anode or simply time for replacement tank. I'm sure there
is something that will work, but I'm a little damp and frustrated at the
moment so I'm not coming up with any good ideas.

I highly recommend the ball valve replacement for the drain valve BTW.
You wouldn't believe all the gravel I got out of the first water heater,
and I flushed it (through the little plastic valve) less than a year
ago. There were chunks coming out that would never have fit through the
little plastic valve. I'm sure if I could do the same treatment to the
gas heater I'd have much more efficient heating of my water... (got the
idea fromhttp://www.waterheaterrescue.com/thanks to a link posted here)

please help, I dream of a day where I can do an annual flush of my water
heaters without "special instructions" and a minor flood in the basement

nate

Why not check the anode first.

'cause I can't drain down the tank!

If you might replace the tank, why
bother with the valve now.

It's just work, and I can always salvage it from the tank if it goes to
the scrapper. I also would like to add valves so I can isolate/bypass
either water heater, and I can't do that without draining the tanks,
which I can't easily do without working valves.

The garden hose cap should be fine for
awhile, and probably for the remaining life of the tank. You could
also connect a hose and drain it more so the gravel comes out. Then
try to replace the washer in the valve.

Why do you have 2 water heaters anyhow?

One is solar, and feeds the other (gas.)

nate

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- Show quoted text -

I would super insulatre the solar one!