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Plumbers of Boise
Plumbers of Boise
Plumbing · Idaho
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No Hot Water

If there's water pooling under the tank or a burning smell around it, cut the gas or the breaker to the unit and leave it alone until someone can look at it.

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When this becomes an emergency

What a pro does

Diagnosis splits early on fuel type. A gas tank that won't stay lit sends the plumber to the thermocouple, the gas control and the venting, in that order. An electric unit with the same complaint means pulling the access panels to test the upper and lower elements and the thermostats behind them, since a failed lower element gives you a short burst of hot water and then nothing, which is the complaint people describe most often. Water chemistry does a lot of damage in this valley. The supply here carries a heavy mineral load, and that comes out of solution inside a hot tank and settles as a hard layer over the burner. That layer is what makes an older heater rumble. It also forces the burner to run longer for the same result, which shortens the life of the tank. A plumber checks the anode rod on a unit old enough to matter, because once it's spent the tank wall itself is what corrodes next. Where the heater sits in an unconditioned garage, as it does in most newer subdivision homes here, the plumber also looks at how hard the unit is working through a cold snap.

Frequently asked questions

Minerals drop out of the water as it heats and collect at the bottom of the tank. That sediment insulates the burner from the water it's trying to heat, so the metal at the base runs hotter than it was designed to, and the tank fails from that stress before it would in a soft-water area.
It works harder, certainly. Incoming water is colder in winter and the surrounding garage air is nowhere near room temperature, so the unit has a bigger gap to close on every cycle. A marginal heater usually shows itself first during that stretch.
It depends on what failed. A thermocouple or an element is a straightforward part. A leaking tank isn't repairable at all, and on an older unit a plumber will usually talk through where the rest of it stands rather than fixing one thing on a heater that's near the end anyway.
That points at the tank rather than the service line. Rust colored water on the hot side alone generally means corrosion inside the heater, often once the anode rod has been used up and the steel wall has started to go.

No Hot Water?

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