And my problem's right here. I'm getting water coming out this pipe.
I see the bucket. Okay, so that's your temperature and relief valve, the T and P, the most important safety device really in this whole system. I brought a little cutaway here. It senses temperature, the T, right here.
For more information on our hot water services, click here.
Okay.
If it gets to be 210 degrees or higher in the tank, it will relieve through here.
Okay.
And the spring right here is where it senses pressure. That's 150 psi. Now what I love seeing is that there's a bucket underneath it. I've come into jobs where people have plugged off the bottom of the relief or they plugged off here, and what they've created really is a bomb.
Oh my goodness.
Now it could be that this temperature and pressure valve, they wear out over time. It could be that we just have to change and put one a new one in.
But Richard, I did that about two weeks ago.
Really?
And I still have water.
All right, so if you have replaced it, I want to check one more thing.
Okay.
Larry, I think we found our culprit.
Oh.
So here's the water main that comes in right here from the street. That's all the city water supply that comes to the building.
Yep.
It splits in with a T to two different meters. This one is for your outdoor sprinkler system. You look up, the added a pressure gauge, and look at this. It's 100 psi.
Wow.
Now 100 pounds of pressure is a lot. It might be okay for irrigation, but it's not good for a house because that much pressure means you waste a ton of water and the faucets have to work much harder and they can wear out much faster.
If you look right here on the part that goes into the house, they've added a pressure reducing valve.
Yeah, that was something the town did about 10 years ago.
Okay, so it's good because it steps the pressure down, but it can lead to some unintended consequences.
Ah.
So here's what it looks like. It's got a directional flow right here. I turn it over. It's a cutaway, so 100 pounds of pressure might come here, through a filter screen, through a diaphragm. There's a spring right here, and you can set it right here and reduce that 100 pounds down to 40 or 50 pounds right here. But whenever you install a pressure reducing valve, it acts like a check valve. It means that the water can only come in from the street, it can't go the other way, and that might be what's causing the problem.
Why would I ever want water to go the other way?
Let me show you.
All right, so a little anatomy lesson. Here is that cold water line coming from the pressure reducing valve. That's going to be, what 50 pounds of pressure. It comes into the top of the water heater.
Okay.
It goes down in a dip tube to the very bottom. It sends cold water to the bottom. It then gets heated by this burner, and now heated water leaves through here.
Yep.
Every time we heat up water, that water needs a place to expand, so sometimes that expansion will be taken care of because people open the faucets and relieve that pressure.
That makes sense.
But many times in a house, this water wants to expand this way, up through the cold water line, and work its way back through the meter and actually go outside the building, but you can't-
But it can't do that.
That's right, so now we've stopped it, so now what happens is it heats up, starts to build up the pressure just a little bit, 140, 150, dribbles a little bit, and then somebody opens a faucet and you're fine. What I don't get is why is this happening now. That PRV went in, what, like 10 years ago, right?
Correct.
The water heater shows to be six years ago.
Uh-huh.
Why is this only happening now? It has to be that there's been some change in lifestyle, use, or some change in the building's occupants.
You know, I'm not sure this is it, but I just recently retired.
Okay.
And that means I get up later than I used to. The wife still goes out, takes her shower, and heads out the door bright and early.
You-
I'm still sleeping.
You might be onto something. Let's take that for a ride for a minute. If a shower happened at, call it five in the morning, this is a 75,000 BTU burner on here. It's a big powerful burner. The sensor comes on, heats up that tank, and then nobody uses water for the next two, three, four hours, what happens?
I'm sleeping.
It's going to expand, expand, expand.
Yep.
It starts to dribble out through here and probably it starts to relieve. Then you wake up and take a shower, it probably makes it all right. Does this thing leak during the day?
No. I only see it in the morning.
So that's it. What we need I think is we need a place for expansion to happen.
Okay.
Now we know expansion tanks on heating systems, right? It's the same idea. Water needs a place to expand, so we always have an expansion tank right here. If you looked inside it, it will always have water on one side, an air charge on this side, so now when that water expands, it pushes this neoprene gasket this way against the air, so it constantly acts like a shock absorber.
What we need to do is to get an expansion tank like this, but for potable water, because this has to be one that won't rust because these are metal normally, so let me run and go grab this. I think we have found the smoking gun. It's you. You retired.
Excellent.
I'm just going to drain the level of the water here just enough to be able to cut those pipes.
So the nice things with these push fitting is even if there's a little bit of water dripping down, it doesn't matter. The soldering, I couldn't solder. There we go.
All right, my friend, we've got your brand new potable water expansion tank here. We've got all the water back on, no leaks.
No leaks.
I think you can now stop worrying about your T and P valve, all right?
I see the bucket. Okay, so that's your temperature and relief valve, the T and P, the most important safety device really in this whole system. I brought a little cutaway here. It senses temperature, the T, right here.
For more information on our hot water services, click here.
Okay.
If it gets to be 210 degrees or higher in the tank, it will relieve through here.
Okay.
And the spring right here is where it senses pressure. That's 150 psi. Now what I love seeing is that there's a bucket underneath it. I've come into jobs where people have plugged off the bottom of the relief or they plugged off here, and what they've created really is a bomb.
Oh my goodness.
Now it could be that this temperature and pressure valve, they wear out over time. It could be that we just have to change and put one a new one in.
But Richard, I did that about two weeks ago.
Really?
And I still have water.
All right, so if you have replaced it, I want to check one more thing.
Okay.
Larry, I think we found our culprit.
Oh.
So here's the water main that comes in right here from the street. That's all the city water supply that comes to the building.
Yep.
It splits in with a T to two different meters. This one is for your outdoor sprinkler system. You look up, the added a pressure gauge, and look at this. It's 100 psi.
Wow.
Now 100 pounds of pressure is a lot. It might be okay for irrigation, but it's not good for a house because that much pressure means you waste a ton of water and the faucets have to work much harder and they can wear out much faster.
If you look right here on the part that goes into the house, they've added a pressure reducing valve.
Yeah, that was something the town did about 10 years ago.
Okay, so it's good because it steps the pressure down, but it can lead to some unintended consequences.
Ah.
So here's what it looks like. It's got a directional flow right here. I turn it over. It's a cutaway, so 100 pounds of pressure might come here, through a filter screen, through a diaphragm. There's a spring right here, and you can set it right here and reduce that 100 pounds down to 40 or 50 pounds right here. But whenever you install a pressure reducing valve, it acts like a check valve. It means that the water can only come in from the street, it can't go the other way, and that might be what's causing the problem.
Why would I ever want water to go the other way?
Let me show you.
All right, so a little anatomy lesson. Here is that cold water line coming from the pressure reducing valve. That's going to be, what 50 pounds of pressure. It comes into the top of the water heater.
Okay.
It goes down in a dip tube to the very bottom. It sends cold water to the bottom. It then gets heated by this burner, and now heated water leaves through here.
Yep.
Every time we heat up water, that water needs a place to expand, so sometimes that expansion will be taken care of because people open the faucets and relieve that pressure.
That makes sense.
But many times in a house, this water wants to expand this way, up through the cold water line, and work its way back through the meter and actually go outside the building, but you can't-
But it can't do that.
That's right, so now we've stopped it, so now what happens is it heats up, starts to build up the pressure just a little bit, 140, 150, dribbles a little bit, and then somebody opens a faucet and you're fine. What I don't get is why is this happening now. That PRV went in, what, like 10 years ago, right?
Correct.
The water heater shows to be six years ago.
Uh-huh.
Why is this only happening now? It has to be that there's been some change in lifestyle, use, or some change in the building's occupants.
You know, I'm not sure this is it, but I just recently retired.
Okay.
And that means I get up later than I used to. The wife still goes out, takes her shower, and heads out the door bright and early.
You-
I'm still sleeping.
You might be onto something. Let's take that for a ride for a minute. If a shower happened at, call it five in the morning, this is a 75,000 BTU burner on here. It's a big powerful burner. The sensor comes on, heats up that tank, and then nobody uses water for the next two, three, four hours, what happens?
I'm sleeping.
It's going to expand, expand, expand.
Yep.
It starts to dribble out through here and probably it starts to relieve. Then you wake up and take a shower, it probably makes it all right. Does this thing leak during the day?
No. I only see it in the morning.
So that's it. What we need I think is we need a place for expansion to happen.
Okay.
Now we know expansion tanks on heating systems, right? It's the same idea. Water needs a place to expand, so we always have an expansion tank right here. If you looked inside it, it will always have water on one side, an air charge on this side, so now when that water expands, it pushes this neoprene gasket this way against the air, so it constantly acts like a shock absorber.
What we need to do is to get an expansion tank like this, but for potable water, because this has to be one that won't rust because these are metal normally, so let me run and go grab this. I think we have found the smoking gun. It's you. You retired.
Excellent.
I'm just going to drain the level of the water here just enough to be able to cut those pipes.
So the nice things with these push fitting is even if there's a little bit of water dripping down, it doesn't matter. The soldering, I couldn't solder. There we go.
All right, my friend, we've got your brand new potable water expansion tank here. We've got all the water back on, no leaks.
No leaks.
I think you can now stop worrying about your T and P valve, all right?
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