What a long day - HW woes

WobblyHand

WobblyHand

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No HW at the homestead. Traced it down to what I thought was a bad circulator on an indirect hot water heater. Ordered a circulator on Sunday. Circulator finally arrived today. Installed it with the usual amount of bad muscle positions, but got it done. Fortunately, the circulator is isolated by some ball valves. Fired up the system, feeling like I fixed the problem. Picked up my wife from the airport and went back downstairs to the boiler. While I was in the room I hear a whoosh. The hot water heater blow off valve opened. Ok, shut the boiler down and investigate. Water continues to pour onto the floor. Close lots of nearby valves and nothing seems to stop the flow. This is a 3/4" line, so lots of hot water is coming out. Get close to the HW tank and attempt to play with the valve but it won't seat. Finally stops at 2" on the floor. :(

Remembered I have a pump and some hot water hose. Hook it up and get most of it pumped out. Ok, we do need some heat so lets get the boiler going again. Set all the valves in the right position and start it up. Less than 5 minutes later and pop goes the blow off again. This is getting tiring. Start shutting down everything again. Umm, the water is still pouring out. Look up, for some reason, and see a cold water line sweating. Trace it to the HW heater. Yes, it is filling the HW heater AND pushing out the hot water through the blow off valve onto the floor. Ok, where's the shut off? Umm, no where near the boiler. It's near the house shut off. Just great. :blue: But the cascade of water stops when I close the valve. And half the house has no cold water now. The whole house has no hot water either. What a pain in the posterior. But at least the situation is stable for the night. No HW now for 5 days. I'm pretty cranky.

My plumber wants $300 for emergency service. That's $300 just to have the answering service call him. Hmm, I could buy some good tools with that, I will wait until morning. This has been a pretty crummy stretch of days. It will get fixed, but its no fun right now.
 
Ugh. Sorry that is happening to you and your wife. That sucks, especially this time of the year. Hang in there, fair weather always follows the storm.
 
My plumbing co answers the phone 24/7. I'll take that $300 and buy some tools for me if it makes you feel better.
 
Dhal22 said:
My plumbing co answers the phone 24/7. I'll take that $300 and buy some tools for me if it makes you feel better.
Click to expand...
Mine does too. But charges $300 for emergency service. I can't blame them. And I wouldn't blame you for doing so either.

That's why I was happy to have stabilized the situation until morning.
 
What a saga! It makes my broken pipe a few weeks back seem like a cake walk. While we had no water for a day, at least we had heat.

If it were me, I would take the opportunity to add some valves. Our 40 y.o. hot water heater has isolation valves but they don't close off completely. Should there be a HW system failure, I would have to shyt down our entire system.
 
Bummer dude! I hope you find the problem and get it fixed first thing off in the morning.

Tim
 
sounds like the water heater t and p relief valve is opening.
 
If memory serves there should be a pressure regulator on that cold water fill line. I always keep a spare pressure relief valve on the shelf for my on demand heater and the steam shower unit. They do go bad occasionally. Mike
 
If I recall correctly, the pressure relief vale on a hot water system also has an over-temperature safety consisting of a fusible link. Once activated, it can't be reset and has to be replaced.
 
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