Thread: Anyone had a frozen water heater ?

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This winter is apparently never going to end. We got below 0 temps with wind and snow for this week again. Now tonight when my boy was taking a shower I heard water spraying everywhere in the basement. We've have a tankless water heater and we've had such a strong cold north west wind for so long that the cold air coming in the chimney froze my water heater and burst two coils. I'm going to bring it to our radiator guy in town and hopefully he can fix it.

You should be able to lay some solder on that and put it together. How high a pressure are you running?
60 - 70 psi?

You could take a elbow of next bigger size and cut out a portion for curvature and sweat it on to yours over the split--------would be reinforced repair??????

I brought it to a HVAC buddy of mine, and he's silver soldered it beautifully. I got it together last night and no leaks and hot water. For the time being, I stuck a heat lamp on it until the temperatures warm up, then I'm going to put a new exhaust pipe on it with a flapper in it to keep the cold air from drafting back in.

we dont have your weather down here but a common thing is heat tape on our wells . my well hose is insulated but many are not. heat tape with a temp sensor works really well .

Originally Posted by shine

we dont have your weather down here but a common thing is heat tape on our wells . my well hose is insulated but many are not. heat tape with a temp sensor works really well .

I thought of the heat tape but I didn't know you could get a sensor for it.

I have used this product when I had a well - wrapped it on the pipes, plugged it in and never had another freeze.

https://www.amazon.com/HEATIT-24-fee...ag=googhydr-20

it's like a timer but has a temp setting . set it at 32 and forget it .

Sorry to see the cold weather issues Seth. You sure wouldn't think we'd still be having these unusually low temps right now. I'm ready for them to go away.
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Originally Posted by 53 Chevy5

I brought it to a HVAC buddy of mine, and he's silver soldered it beautifully. I got it together last night and no leaks and hot water. For the time being, I stuck a heat lamp on it until the temperatures warm up, then I'm going to put a new exhaust pipe on it with a flapper in it to keep the cold air from drafting back in.

I am not sure that a vent with a flapper would be a good idea for the exhaust. The exhaust would likely not have enough pressure to open the flapper as it's simply hot air rising. This could cause issues with carbon monoxide gas and thats never a good thing.

Hopefully I don't have to worry about cold for awhile now, all though I woke up to snow on the ground Saturday ��. My water heater has a squirrel cage fan for a power vent so a light flap wouldn't be an issue.