Where is your water heater located? Water heaters can be found in many different areas of a home. Sometimes they are located in a closet, sometimes in a garage. Either of these locations makes sense. However, at some point installing water heaters in attics seemed like a good idea for some. This turned out to be a less than perfect situation. The severity of damage due to leaks greatly increased. Maintenance in replacements became more difficult, especially when put in 2nd floor pull-down attics. Believe it or not it, comes down to closet space. In my opinion, the added ten square feet to the home isn’t worth that much risk.
City code mandates that any water heater in an attic must have a pan underneath it to catch water in the event of a leak. The pan must be piped out to the exterior of the house. However, the pans are only about two inches deep, and just big enough around to fit a water heater. Many times a check valve is installed in line with the pan. These can get stuck or the line can get plugged up with insulation. A creature such as a small rodent or large lizard can even crawl up through the pipe and die. In this case the pan will fill up and overflow.
Several products on the market, such as FloodStop ® and Taco ®, detect when a leak is occurring and automatically cut the water supply to the unit. Imagine putting your thumb over a straw in a beverage and pulling the straw out with your thumb in place. The straw will remain full, due to vacuum. Turning off the supply of water to a leaking water heater will cause the same phenomena, holding the water inside the water heater.
The best solution is to relocate the water heater to a safer place in the home. The garage or utility closets are usually the best alternatives. This might seem like a complicated and expensive idea until you consider the cost of replacing every item in your home including the wood due to the catastrophic failure of your water heater.
A water heater in your attic can be a scary situation, but never fear! Your qualified, licensed plumber has solutions to minimize the problem. Give us a call and let us help you determine the best options for greatly reducing, if not eliminating the possibility of an attic water heater disaster. Remember, when you call for any plumbing issue from now until August 15, we’ll add a whole house plumbing inspection absolutely FREE. It’s a great time to find out if your water heater is in great shape, and save $100 while you’re at it! Call today, 972-424-6479.
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