Water heater drain pain filling up

2,009 Views | 14 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by Sweet Kitten Feet
bigtruckguy3500
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So at my mom's house and she asks me why water is coming out of a pipe in the wall. Turns out it's coming from the drain pan for the water heater in the garage. I go poking around and notice that there's a good bit of water on top of the water heater around the vent, dripping down on top of the water heater and then making its way down to the drain pain.

I can't tell if there's an additional leak underneath or not, but there's a decent amount of water in the pan constantly draining.

Any thoughts on how to trouble shoot this? I leave tomorrow morning, so not a whole lot of time to fix anything if it's a major fix.

bigtruckguy3500
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Figured it out. Turned off the water input and the dripping slowed then stopped, so I took off the insulation on the input/output pipes and the output was leaking from that PVC/copper joint on the output pipe. Anyone have any suggestions for a temporary solution? Would throwing some caulking on there, or some other sealant, be sufficient? Any suggestions on what to use? thanks

Sweet Kitten Feet
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S
I don't think caulk would help. Too much pressure. Water would find a way through it. That's odd looking though in my uneducated opinion.
bigtruckguy3500
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Yeah, I agree. Never buy a DR Horton home.

I found something called Oatey Fix it stick. It's a putty that hardens and can apparently be used for fixing pipe leaks. I also found a PVC compression coupling that I think I can use, but will have to cut out just the right length of both pipes.

I think the Oatey stick will work temporarily, an I feel like either way that section of pipe will need to be removed or cut out to fix since it's copper to PVC. So I'm not really making things more difficult on myself by using the Oatey stick. Any thoughts?

Thanks
sts7049
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AG
never heard of that stuff but maybe it works in a pinch.

make sure mom knows how to shut off the water in case something fails, until it can be fixed correctly.
bigtruckguy3500
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That putty appears to be holding, but I think water got into the pilot light igniter. So I'm going to try opening it up to air dry.
JP76
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Is that copper screwed on or sweated to the nipple on the water heater ?

If it's screwed I would get a female threaded to slip cpvc coupling . Take a brass threaded nipple and wraps the thread with teflon and screw it into the female threaded cpvc coupling. Then Cut and Glue that on the existing cpvc pipe. Then get a stainless steel flex supply line and connect the 2 together.
bigtruckguy3500
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It is screwed in. That sounds like it'd work well. However I think I'll need to get the plumber to do that. I fly out tomorrow morning and deploy in a week.

Although the water heater is probably 14 years old, it might just be a good time to replace it. Because right now the pilot light looks like it keeps going out. I don't know if I messed something up, but the light will stay on until the burner comes on. Then the whole thing goes out. So I think the thermocouple is ok. It's almost like there isn't enough air or it out Burns its feel supply, the burner may be dirty.
Whitetail
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AG
What town does mom live in?
bigtruckguy3500
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Baytown. Know any plumbers in the area?

Also, I opened it up further and found the burner pretty rusty with some water still pooled in it. Dried it up and gave it a quick wipe down. Going to give it another go in a bit.
txag2008
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AG
14yrs old + pilot issues + a janky/leaking copper-to-PVC adapter = new water heater install
bigtruckguy3500
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Got it working this morning. I think the burner just needed to dry out all the way. But still, at 14+years, only a matter of time before it goes out again.

Hopefully she'll be able to get it replaced soon. Is it better to just hire a plumber to take care of it all? Or buy from home Depot and let their folks install it? Thanks.
kb2001
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AG
Home Depot guys are just people from the area who sign up to handle their installs. You might get a better warranty through HD, and you'd have them on your side of something goes wrong, but you could likely end up with the same guy whether you went through HD or not

Somebody please correct if I'm mistaken about how HD/Lowe's installers work
bigtruckguy3500
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's right. They just hire local contractors. But I think like you said, they can act as an intermediary if something goes wrong, and the contractors probably don't want to lose that home depot/lowe's referral.
Old Tom Morris
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I went the HD route with my last one and was happy with the work. And yeah, it was just a local contractor.
Sweet Kitten Feet
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S
Lowes installed our dish washer recently. Local installer. Not one of the major companies or anything, smaller outfit that probably gets most of their volume from Lowe's and Home Depot. No problems with it, would use them again.
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