In my son's room it smell like ammonia on his carpet, there is a soaking wet puddle, and the wet spot smell's like ammonia, the hot water heater is in he's closet. We do have a cat and dog but, the wet spot is too big to be theirs. So does a leaking hot water heater smell like ammonia if NOT what could it be??

Water in a HW tank smells just like it does coming out of your tap. Does it smell like ammonia? Is the leak directly under the tank? Since you do have a cat and a dog, I would suspect animal origin.

Ammonia smell is most likely cat pee. It's possible the cat peed long ago and it dried. Perhaps the tank is leaking and when it did it re-wet where the cat peed before, thus giving you the smell from the now rehydrated pee, and the volume from the tank. Just a thought. Is the area right around the tank the wet spot?

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Originally Posted by mike 165278

Ammonia smell is most likely cat pee. It's possible the cat peed long ago and it dried. Perhaps the tank is leaking and when it did it re-wet where the cat peed before, thus giving you the smell from the now rehydrated pee, and the volume from the tank. Just a thought. Is the area right around the tank the wet spot?

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It is, but it's so leak so much that it spread all over. We had to turn off the water to the house.

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Originally Posted by Miranda And

It is, but it's so leak so much that it spred all over. We had to turn off the water to the house.

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You should be able to shut off the water going to the HW tank, rather than the whole house.