At the end of last week Kathy noticed a puddle in the garage near the freezer. However, it wasn’t the freezer. Instead it was the water heater that is located right behind it. It was leaking. Very nicely Matthew on Friday cleaned up the garage and moved the freezer for me. So on Saturday after running the last 13.1 miles of the marathon course I opened up the water heater door and sure enough it was leaking. The floor was wet, and the top was wet. It didn’t look good. I was sure that the heater was leaking and it would cost upward to $1000 to buy and install a new one.
However after analyzing the symptoms I realized it was one of the pipes, the output hot water pipe (on the left), that was corroded and leaking. So it cost me $15 worth of parts and about $45 for a new torch. I shut off the cold water input, drained the tank, and turned off the gas. Then I took apart the old copper pipe joint, put on a new threaded coupling and then tightened on a new hot water output connection. Afterwards I turned on the cold water input, and lit the pilot. Unfortunately the sweating of my new coupling was leaking. So Sunday morning I did it all over again. Although initially it leaked a bit, the leak stopped and I’ve been checking it all day. So far it hasn’t leaked any more so I think I’ve fixed it. Slowly the damp floor is drying.
