[lorensandboe]

Hello, I just followed the instructions to drain, clean, and refill my gas hot water heater here:

http://www.instructables.com/id/water-heater-maintenance/

After finishing, I seem to have no hot water pressure whatsoever. The water input is open, and (when turned on), hot water comes out of the pressure release valve AND the bottom drain. However, none seems to go through the house pipes and none comes out of any tap in the house. Cold water works fine.

I have tried emptying it completely, opening a hot tap in the house, and refilling the tank from scratch to try and get rid of any vapor lock, but it didn't work. When I tried that, air sputtered out of the faucet for awhile and I thought I must be getting somewhere, but eventually that just stopped and water still did not come out of the tank.

Here are two pics of my tank:

http://i.imgur.com/H3r1tA1.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/UPJGVXj.jpg

Any ideas before I break down and call a plumber? :( Deeply regretting ever performing "yearly maintenance" on my hot water heater, because I can already predict that someone will just try to sell me a new one.

[speedball1]

I couldn't get to your maintenance instructions but from what you say I disagree with them.

Hello, I just followed the instructions to drain

You flush the heater under pressure, not simply drain it,

yearly maintenance on gas water heater

Much too long a time. You should flush your heater every month or so to remove sediment build up.
My guess would be that you left your heater without proper maintenance that the build up has entered your system and is now clogging up the inlet ports on your faucet cartridges or perhaps you have heat trap nipples that are clogged,
Let me show you how we maintenance our heaters.



For long life and fewer troubles you should keep your heater clear of mineral build-up by FLUSHING NOT DRAINING on a regular schedule.

Attach a hose to the boiler drain at the bottom of the tank. With the pressure on, open the boiler drain and let it run until the water runs clear. You will see a spurt of red,(rust) followed by white or yellow grains,(lime or calcium carbonate). This shouldn't take more then a few minutes.

Do this monthly to keep it clear. Now flush out your hot water lines on ALL fixtures that are affected . Now pull each aerator and clean the screens. Be sure you put them back together the same way you took them out. Don't forget to flush it out every month. Your heater will thank you for it. Hope this helps and thank you for rating my answer,

Tom

[hkstroud]

Do you by any chance have these flood safe type faucet supply lines?

See
FloodSafe® Automatic Water Shutoff Connectors - New Products - Watts

[lorensandboe]

Hi speedball, thanks for the advice. How do I flush out the hot water lines after I have pressure flushed the tank?

An "aerator" is the screen filter on every tap, right?

If the heat trap nipple(s) have become clogged, is there a method to unclog them without dismantling the entire water heater?

Hi hkstroud, thanks for the idea. I do not believe so though - there are just copper pipes attached to the water heater.

[hkstroud]

No, look at the supply lines between the valve and the faucet. If I read your post correctly you do not have hot water anywhere.
Pipes do not get blocked by debris, only valves. If you do not have any valves on the hot water output line between the water heater and where it branches off to different places (normally you would not) there must be something else preventing hot water at each faucet.

This type of supply line is suppose to stop water in case the supply line bust. Something that does not happen. I suspect that when you relieved all the pressure while flushing the water heater these devices thought the supply line had burst and shut off the flow. Check under each sink. Look for the device on the end of the supply line where it connects to the stop valve.

From the pic it does not look like you have heat trap nipples.

[lorensandboe]

That's correct, no hot water anywhere. And that's correct, there are no valves on the hot water output. I am at work at the moment, but I will check for that item elsewhere in the lines when I get home.

[hkstroud]

..

[lorensandboe]

Would this floodsafe gadget also prevent air from escaping from the taps? When I have drained the tank, left hot tap(s) open (with cold taps closed) elsewhere in the house, and then refilled, air has been able to escape these taps.

[hkstroud]

No. If you find you have these flood safe type supply lines, and I think you will.
Turn off the stop valve, disconnect the supply line from the stop valve and then reconnect it. That is suppose to reset it.

Personally, I would discard and replace them with regular braided supply lines. A case of the cure being worse than the disease.

[lorensandboe]

My concern now is that if you're right, the tubs in the house are also not allowing hot water to flow and I don't have access to those lines other than the ones directly available in my furnace room. I'm very interested (and nervous) to see what I have on my hands when I get home.

[massplumber2008]

You said, "hot water comes out of the pressure release valve AND the bottom drain"...

Water shouldn't come out of the bottom drain no matter what reason anyone here presents!

SHUT THE BOTTOM DRAIN to start. Next, water out the relief valve, and HOT WATER no less, would require the water to get heated up first. IS that what is happening, water goes into the heater and then after awhile it gets hot and is releaded through the temperature and pressure relief valve? If so then we can help with ideas! If not, and water is just releasing as fast as you send it in then dflip the lever on the temp. and pressure relief valve and make sure it seats. If it won't seat the temp. and pressure relief valve needs to be replaced. Did you touch this valev when draining the heater??

Back to you...

Mark

[lorensandboe]

Haha. I only meant that IF I open the bottom drain and/or pressure relief valve, water will come out, not that they are open all of the time. And it is only hot IF I have lit the gas heater, which I have left unlit while I am troubleshooting my pressure problem. I only said this to demonstrate that water is going into the hot water heater when the water-in valve is open and the heater's primary purpose, to heat, is still functioning.

During my "no pressure" problem, the drain and the pressure relief valve are both closed (but if I choose to open them, water will come out, showing that there is water in the tank) but water is not exiting the taps. I did touch the pressure relief valve during draining but only to release the pressure so that the water could drain.

[hkstroud]

Your are confused. The supply lines are the little flexible tubes (pipes) that connect the faucets and toilets to the valve that is on the pipes that come out of the wall. They are located in the cabinets beneath the faucets and at the toilets.

There rest of the pipes are just pipes.

If you would like you can just take a picture of the pipes under the cabinet.

[lorensandboe]

Oh I fully admit I am no plumber. As a total layman to this terminology, I'm just doing the best I can. :) I think I get you now though - I took "supply lines" to just be synonymous with "pipes". I understand a little better now I think.

With that knowledge, though, do you think it likely that my tubs would have a Floodsafe? Because I am also not getting hot water at the tubs, and like I said I don't really have access to the tub's pipes. I don't know, maybe you can't really say. The only way for me to tell might be to see if I have Floodsafes elsewhere in the house.

Edit - and yes, I may take a photo of the pipes under some sinks when I get home this evening, so you can tell me what you think. I sure appreciate all of this help.

[hkstroud]

My logic doesn't make sense for the tub. Take the pic and let's see. It's about the only reason I can think of for all of you faucets to not have hot water. A normal tub or shower would not be connected using this kind of supply tube.

As I stated earlier pipes don't get stopped up from debris. If you have debris in a pipe it can be carried by the water to the next valve and stop up the valve because the opening through the valve is smaller than the pipe. For that to be your problem there would have to be a valve on the hot water line before the line splits off going to the different places in the house. Normally you wouldn't have a valve like that and if you did it would be highly unlikely you could stop up a 3/4" valve.

Take the photos and lets see.

[lorensandboe]

Ok, here are some pictures of a sink in my house. I checked all three (1 kitchen, 2 bath), they are all like this except for the kitchen has one side valve that leads to the dishwasher - the valve is off the pipe though, and would not be obstructing the pipe to the sink tap.

http://i.imgur.com/DlUcc9A.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/NKZwGb8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/00M6EGV.jpg

As you can see, there is no Floodsafe, just the pipe. I looked all around my furnace room for a Floodsafe looking thing also, but saw nothing.

I'm currently running a flush as per speedball1's suggestion, and there is a minor amount of debris still. I've let that run for about half an hour. I'm hoping that maybe it's slowly wearing away at a plug, or something? If this doesn't work, I think my next step is to drain the entire system and then disconnect the hot-water-out pipe, and see if there is a physical obstruction in the immediate pipe up/down...

One last note, thank you so much again for the replies.

[hkstroud]

No, doesn't look like the flood safe supply lines. You don't even have stop valves to get blocked. I can see why you didn't know what I was talking about when I said supply lines.

Show us pics of the rest of the piping that you can see.

[afaroo]

Hello Lorensandboe,

I read all the responds and good advices from the experts I would like to add my 2 cents, if you have problem with hot water only I would suggest to close the inlet Shut off valve at the heater drain some water through the drain valve at the bottom now disconnect the hot outlet line from the water heater, look at the nipple it see if it clogged if so remove clean or replace it, Good luck.

John

[hkstroud]

John may be onto something. I at first said that there were no heat sink nipples. I just went back and looked again. Now I can't be sure because of the gas pipe that is in front.
Show us another picture without the gas pipe blocking where the pipe come out of the water heater.

[lorensandboe]

Yes absolutely, I just saw that now that you mentioned it, that was careless of me. Here's another photo:

http://i.imgur.com/HAfmYow.jpg

Cold water in on the right, hot water out on the left.

Edit: Here's another shot that might be relevant; the same pipes but further up.

http://i.imgur.com/I1fnt3m.jpg