My water heater appears to be leaking where the electric connection is. We've turned the power off to the water heater just to be safe. What could cause this and what should be done? The water heater isn't even 1 year old yet and if it's crapped out this will be the second one in 2 years. Luckily we have a 6 year warranty on the thing. There's nothing leaking above the water heater... it appears to be coming from inside.

Damn... where are you at... I've seen 40 year old heaters that looked better than that.

What kind of pipes do you have... galvanized, copper or plastic?

Pretty bad eh? Plastic pvc pipes. What can we do to keep this from happening again? Are the water heaters faulty or is it something in our plumbing or water causing this? What are the odds of two water heaters going bad in 2 years? Seems very unlikely to me.

What part of the Country is this? City or Well water? Odds of two that fast is slim in normal situations. We have a few MUCH more experienced people who will give you the advice...

With Plastic pipes its not galvanic corrosion... so... acidic water? Electrical grounding issues??

I'd check the tappings/connections into the water heater and the T&P valve. With any luck, the nipples (pipes) connecting the heater to the pipes is the issue... not the heater itself!

Check the threaded connections at all tappings into the heater. If you have a vacuum breaker (valve with a top hat on it), check the threads there, too! Hopefully, you'll find this to be the issue and may be repairable (depends on damage to the electrical).

Keep the power shut off and open the electrical junction box (the one in the pic.) and see what it looks like in there. If the jct. box is full of water , leave the cover off to dry it out.

Next step is to open the access panels at the upper and lower access doors... see what kind of damage has occurred at the thermostats/elements.

Depending on what you find, depending on electrical damage and where the leak is, you may actually be able to salvage this, but it certainly doesn't look good, for sure!

Fact is that even new heaters fail! Rare it is, but it does happen! Investigate the things I present and then pop back to discuss, OK?

Mark

Eastern U.S. Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It's well water... but not super high quality. We filter it for drinking. My husband said that he thought it could be an electrical grounding issue as well. Maybe a combination of both.. crappy water and electrical issue.

Read my post... was posting when you posted! Back to you...

Thank you Mark. I'll pass this along to my husband. My brother does plumbing work and he's coming over tomorrow to take a look at it. I'll pass along this info to him as well.

Follow Marks advice. He's bang on! Your electrical connection has no connection to the inside of the tank so either the leak's at the inlet or outlet of the heater (most likely) or a weld opened up bin the boiler. If the T&P valve's located on top I'd check that also, Good luck, Tom