I’m Having Problems With High Water Pressure When My Water Heater Kicks In. Should I Replace The Water Heater?
Friday, December 18th, 2009 at
1:39 am
I have a pressure gauge on my water pipes. When normal it read 64psi, but when the water heater kicks in the pressure goes up off the charts, past 100psi. Should I replace the water heater or is something else the culprit? The water heater is 7 years old. If I have to install a thermal expansion tank I might as well change the heater too. thx
Tagged with: Having • Heater • High • Kicks • Pressure • Problems • Water • When • With
Filed under: Home Repair
What is happening is your city water meter has a one way valve on it, that is water cannot back up into the city supply. Thus your house has a closed system. Same would be true of a well, it too has a check valve in the line.
So upon heating the water expands and has no where to go but blow out the safety valve if the pressure gets too high. And as you know water is incompressible, its not a gas, so that doesnt take much heat on the water to create a problem.
Go to Lowes and buy a Bladder type expansion tank, that has an air bladder in the tank and it allows the water to expand into the air bladder. You can install anywhere in the hot or cold water lines doesnt make any difference where just cut into a pipe and put the expansion bladder tank onto the line.
The cost of the tank at Lowes is about $45. This is a common problem and especially with the newer water meters where return flow is restricted and pressure builds due to expansion. The older meters allowed back blow of water into the city system.
if it’s not popping the relief valve I wouldn’t worry about it to much. But an expansion tank might solve the problem. Is the heater used for anything else besides hot water? Have a re-circ pump on it by chance?