any of you handy men want to make some money? i'll pay for a diagnosis/estimate for repair. ASAP would be preferred. cold showers SUCK!!

7/16/2008 12:00:18 PM

electric or gas?

7/16/2008 12:08:40 PM

Why would you heat hot water?

7/16/2008 1:10:42 PM

electric or gas

7/16/2008 1:21:35 PM

^

7/16/2008 2:02:54 PM

if all you had was cold water, you would be used to taking cold showers. in fact, they would probably just call them showers.

cut the AC off, open the windows, get some fans. that should help.

7/16/2008 2:08:31 PM

leave garden hose out in sun all day, take shower in yard...profit!

7/16/2008 2:41:23 PM

Diagnosis: It's fucked.

Repair: $300-1200

7/16/2008 2:56:51 PM

I'll assume for some reason it is electric.
but some more info IS needed.
how old is it?
Does it have something like a control box (I'm getting at electronic control, as opposed to old school thermostat)

check the breaker box....breaker tripped?
check control box.....all indicator lights out?
a lot of heaters have little LED's on the heating elements (there are two)
but if it was just one element out you would still have some degree of hot water.
check to see if one or both are on or off.

I had a little relay go out on my W.H. that I fixed for about 6 bucks.

7/16/2008 5:31:58 PM

luckily, the garage holds one BBR: licensed plumbing contractor at your service. hit me with a pm.

Quote :

"I had a little relay go out on my W.H. that I fixed for about 6 bucks."

you had no such thing go out. thermostat probably.

7/17/2008 3:23:39 AM

Quote :

"check control box.....all indicator lights out? a lot of heaters have little LED's on the heating elements (there are two)"

nigga what?

7/17/2008 7:07:08 AM

OK I'll try to be more specific.

WH in my previous home had an led indicator located where each of the two elements were located. They would light when each of the elements were heating as a diagnostic feature.

My current heater has a control module on top. (OK you can call it a thermostat, but it also has built in diagnostics. it will report if an element is bad, etc) The relay that I replaced was the interface between the solid state logic circuit and the elements. Matched the part from mouser.com and swapped it on the circuit board. So I'm pretty fucking proud of myself.
Cheap DIY fix, and I don't think any plumber would be doing any circuit board work!
More like replace the whole control unit or "Oh you gonna need a whole new heater"

7/17/2008 9:06:23 AM

There is no point in a hot water heater anyway ... you should be fine

If the water is hot you shouldn't need to heat it.

Sorry i hate people that say it... its either a boiler (i never understood that either if its not a steam boiler nothing boils so why is it called a boiler?) or a water heater.

yes hit up bbr and you'll be done..


[Edited on July 17, 2008 at 9:37 AM. Reason : .]

7/17/2008 9:33:05 AM

sorry guys. i was traveling to seattle when this happened and my fiance ended up getting a plumber to replace the hot water heater. it was an electric one, i think the original HWH from 1984. the tank had ruptured. he replaced it and hauled off the old one for $850. hey BBR give me your contact info so i can give you a call in the future for any plumbing needs.

7/20/2008 8:40:44 PM

$850 is a decent price. as long as he didn't use a GE HWH. those things are shit.

7/20/2008 9:18:09 PM

state w.h. ftw

7/21/2008 12:47:50 AM

^^^pm sent. you're pretty damn lucky if it was that old, ~24 years is more than a full life for most tanks.

^^eh, 95% of "conventional" electric and gas heaters these days are junk and built as cheaply as possible. especially what the average joe can get from lowes/home depot. there's actually only just a few companies that make them too, they're just marketed under lots of different brands.

^yeah, that's what we mostly put in for conventional stuff. that or rheem-ruud. they're both two of the parent companies mentioned above and have been around a loooong time. some of those old bastards used to last 40-50 years. my parents had a state in their house that lasted from the mid 70's to around 2000. my grandmother's house has a ruudglas that was in the house when they bought it circa 1960 (so at least 48 years old or more) and it's still kicking. most of the ones that old are gone by now, but you still run across one every once in a while. if there's any industry where the statement "they don't make em like the used to" holds true, it's water heaters (and appliances in general really).

Quote :

"OK I'll try to be more specific."

ah, yes i know what you're referring to now. they're junk, and mostly just a sales gimmick. as you found out, it's just another part to fail. there is no real purpose to them, anyone that has a basic understanding of residential electricity and how an electric heater works can diagnose any problem in just a few minutes with a volt meter. the heater companies know full well the process of cost analysis i'm about to explain below, and are headed to the bank twice as much using these "new and improved" features. they make money on up selling heaters with them, then they make money again when it fails.

Quote :

"I don't think any plumber would be doing any circuit board work! More like replace the whole control unit or "Oh you gonna need a whole new heater""

maybe so, but do you understand WHY that's in the the plumber's AND customer's best interest most of the time? you seem to be forgetting that your time might seem free to you, but a professional's isn't. add up the time you spent figuring that out, matching the part up, and then installing it. compare that to the time it would take a plumber to just swap/bypass the unit with new stuff or replace the whole heater.

also keep in mind we have to deal with an upset customer if we spend that time just patching something together only to have it fail again two weeks, a week, or only days later. contrary to popular belief, all members of the service industry aren't out to bend you over any more than you're out to bend people over in whatever it is you do for a living.

that's not to say there aren't times when it's cost effective to do such a repair or if a replacement part isn't available. it's fast becoming a necessity to do repairs on electronics as more sophisticated on demand type heaters gain popularity and the technology advances to more extensive computer controlled and all in one type systems that do more than just give you hot water for your showers and sinks.

Quote :

"There is no point in a hot water heater anyway ... you should be fine If the water is hot you shouldn't need to heat it."

well, that would depend entirely upon exact temperature definition of "hot", wouldn't it? it actually makes perfect sense when you consider the temperature range that feels "hot" to the human body vs. the maintained temperature range of water in the heater. it's very rare that someone have the need to come in direct contact with water much over 110-115 degrees, yet it's a good idea to keep a heater set to at least 120 degrees with 130-140 being optimal. besides heat transfer as the water travels to its destination, a decrease in the effective supply, and an increase in recovery time, you don't want to set one any lower than 120 degrees for reasons of germs/bacteria. therefore, if things are working right you're heating hot water for all intents and purposes. i'm not aware of any other definitive temperature standard to go by in this case.

it's all to often we go places where some genius homeowner has decided it's a good idea to cut the heater back to 110 degrees or something though. the family wonders why they all of a sudden keep passing colds around to eachother and/or drinking tap water starts giving them a mild upset stomach after a while. this is just to try and supposedly save a few bucks a month, which in reality might not even happen. especially on an electric heater where they've probably ignored using a differential in the upper and lower thermostat settings to prevent both elements from always turning on when just a slight recovery is all that might be needed.

i haven't decided what's worse, the people that do this or the ones putting bricks and other shit in their toilet tanks and then they get all confused when the toilet stops up with every piece of tissue or their bathroom floods because water started spewing from the tank to bowl gasket...

Quote :

"Sorry i hate people that say it... its either a boiler (i never understood that either if its not a steam boiler nothing boils so why is it called a boiler?) or a water heater."

good grief man, are you serious?? you call yourself an engineer? haven't i even specifically seen you mention that your job has something to do with the design of hvac systems? please tell me this is just a lame attempt at semantics, or you've just topped your charts of dumb things said around here. if you truly are looking for an answer to your question, please refer to hydronic boilers or even more specifically condensing boilers. this is what you'll find in modern residential applications referred to as a boiler. for example, the impressive representation called "the munchkin". this thing and units like it are the future of unlimited supply radiant and water heating at significant energy savings: http://www.munchkinboiler.net



[Edited on July 21, 2008 at 2:04 AM. Reason : lets not be confusing boilers with steam generators either...]

[Edited on July 21, 2008 at 2:10 AM. Reason : .]

7/21/2008 1:59:20 AM

are tankless water heaters really the shit, or are there drawbacks i'm not aware of?

7/21/2008 2:21:48 AM

yep. the initial investment of the unit and labor on the install can be a bit of a shock, but the benefits quickly overshadow it. not to mention they'll eventually pay for themselves in energy savings (sometimes very quickly depending on the exact situation) and they qualify you for a tax savings/writeoff. in some municipalities, such as durham, the utility companies even give you an additional discount of a few percent off your bill each month for having energy star compliant stuff.

7/21/2008 2:49:52 AM

but they are loud.

7/21/2008 10:43:43 AM

yeah, the combustion blower motors can be kinda loud on some of them when they initially fire. units like the one i linked above sound like little miniature jet engines firing up. makes sense though, they operate under the same basic principles as a thermojet/motorjet. i've never known it to really be an issue for anyone though, and they're certainly quieter than other things in a home like hvac units. even conventional gas heaters, especially powered direct vents, aren't silent either.

7/21/2008 5:04:19 PM