My old hot water tank met its maker about two or three weeks ago, and since then I have installed a new Kenmore 50 gallon gas water heater to replace it.
The new water heater seems to work fine, I was able to hook up the hot and cold lines with the new fangled compression fittings and special 3/4" to 1/2" couplers (I have a 60 year old house, all the water lines are 1/2"OD copper while the water heater came with 3/4"). Because of the hack job on the copper tubing that was there I just got that flexibile ribbed tubing to go from the existing water lines to the water heater.
Little bit of sweating at the fittings, no leaks though. Sprayed leak detector on the gas line, no bubbles. Everything seems good.
Ever since I got the thing the relief valve has been steadily dripping water onto my basement floor. I have an expansion tank going to it, although it is about 3 or 4 feet away from the water heater for overhead space reasons. I typically see these installed much closer to the unit itself, never 3 or 4 feet away if this makes a difference at all in how it performs. It is not leaking there is no rust or any other signs that the bladder inside it is leaking. When installing these you want to make sure they are on the cold line correct?
So I thought perhaps I have the temperature too hot, it was at B, I have since turned it down to A with no noticeable difference.
Water pressure coming to the house has always been extraordinarily high, but I tightened the pressure regulator enough that it should be well under 80 psi.
It is leaking probably over half a liter of water each day. Something wrong with what I did, setup, existing issues with the plumbing? Faulty relief valve? Is it okay to just install a hose from the relief valve and just have that water drain to the A/C water pump and ignore it?
Best Answer
A few things to check;
Did you place the expansion tank on the cold water side?
Did you pressurize the expansion tank to the same pressure that the water line is at after the regulator?
Is the expansion tank size rated for the size of your hot water heater?