We recently moved into a property with 2 water heaters installed. These were installed less than 3 years ago, so they are relatively new. Now, in an effort to conserve electricity (we are just 3 people in the house), I switched off one completely.
We then noticed that the other (functional) water heater's pilot was going off every other day, causing no hot water. We then switched both heaters on 2 days ago, and the problem hasn't reoccurred…
We had a technician come over today, and he said it could be a problem with the thermocouple. But when I mentioned that one of them was switched off, when the problem occurred, he evaluated the plumbing, said that both feed into the same water line, and that that could be the problem causing the pilot on the functioning heater to switch off.
My question is – Does the operation of one water heater affect the other in a setting described above? Of course, I will evaluate whether the problem reoccurs with both heaters being on over the next few days.
Best Answer
It sounds like you are describing two different problems.
FIRST PROBLEM: Turning off a hot water heater.
First, there are two ways to hook up two water heaters: series and parallel.
SERIES
PARALLEL
SECOND PROBLEM: Pilot light going out
Just turning off one heater should not cause the pilot light on the other to go out.