My "hot" water heater

[PRR]

Dammit. The VigLink tiein on this forum is scrambling URLs. Badly!!

This really sucks.

Go to Home Depot site. Search for --
"Blackburn-Bronze-Ground-Clamp"
"Water Heater Tank Booster".

 

[JohnRoberts]

> fabric covered wire

Hate that stuff. Most of it, the cloth has rotted over time. My parents faced major problems... but were rescued when a developer bought the whole block for a strip mall.

Insulation is in surprisingly good shape considering age...and environment.

> fuse box is literally a few feet from the hot water heater.

Well, there you go. Mine is much further.

> I suspect they did the minimum (cheapest) they could get away with...

Or less. There's Code, there's the Inspector, and there's stuff which isn't installed for the initial inspection and may be concealed or overlooked at final inspection. If any. And some inspectors are lax. (Some laxness can be bought but this seems to be rare in small housing, not worth it.)

> Pex tubing between heater and house plumbing so electrically isolated.

Love PEX. Flexible, easy, and you can say "no lead" to a buyer. (The globs of good old lead solder in this house's owner-installed copper were a big minus.) And as you say, vastly reduced shock when you touch plumbing.

If the dirt-rod is inspectable, inspect it. You know when a joint is dubious. If subsoil is soft, assume it is full length. Here I would assume they drove it 2 feet and sawed the excess (and he did). I was very glad to find two large rods professionally laid at the meter pole.

Where ground wire meets earth is over grown with grass/weeds so I need to hit it with some weed killer.  My powerful line trimmer might just cut something it isn't supposed to.  I carefully untangled the crawly vines that were wrapped around it (stuff just grows like that in MS if you don't beat it down). There is a metal rod going straight down into the ground (I didn't pull it out to see how far). The phone/DSL line is bonded to it, and the satellite dish, and the meter/panel.

I didn't bother to figure out which breaker in the panel under my meter was for the heater, I just turned them all off. The house fuse box went dark too.  ;D I guess it is practical to be able to cut off all power from outside the house in case of fire... but maybe shouldn't be so easy for just anyone in my back yard to cut off my power.

I suspect fire departments carry lock cutters.

JR

PS: The new heater came with an extra roll of insulation wrap, but the metal case is cool to the touch (a good thing). I'll add the insulation anyhow.

 

[PRR]

> I'll add the insulation anyhow.

You will find it is warm under the blanket. Makes perfect sense if you model the series-circuit. A chum cited this as a reason to wrap. I say it simply proves voltage-divider theory.

Mine had strict warnings not to wrap over the thermostat panels. There is an over-over-heat sensor calibrated for panel loss. If it cuts-out I dunno if it is re-set or replacement.

And of course the blow-off valve on top expects a certain thermal loss. Mine did come with a soft foam sock, so I assume the element is calibrated for that, but I left air-space around it.

I am less-sure about insulating the top. The internal tank is round-top. This gives over 6" foam around the corners and most of the top area. The bottom is dished-in, so there should be some rim-loss, but no easy way to block that.

> shouldn't be so easy for just anyone in my back yard to cut off my power.

Yeah, well.... I added a breaker box at the meter-pole 50 feet from the house. The panel is lockable, but the latch is so cheezy I didn't want to add struggle. Anybody really wants to make me dark can throw a nylon tow-strap over the wire and drive away.

> fire departments carry lock cutters.

Even easier: bust the meter seal and yank the meter.

This can be *dangerous*. But the standard gear for a fireman is similar enough to what the utility company wears to pull large meters. (My meter they don't even dress-up.)

I had thought this was standard practice in fires. But in a couple recent cases the firemen stood off and waited for BEco workers. Maybe it was not clear which wire went where.

(Secondary issue: pot-growers sometimes bypass the meter to run more gro-lights without being flagged for suspicious consumption. Maybe firemen were hurt when pulled meter did not kill power, and now they leave it to electric men.)

 

[Gene Pink]

Even easier: bust the meter seal and yank the meter.

I had thought this was standard practice in fires.

It was in the '90's, when I was a volunteer. Break the seal, stand to the side, grab the glass at the outer top, and vigorously push down. One time I pulled a meter that was spinning like a top, a very impressive arc flare blew out of the thing when the connections opened up.

Gene

 

[JohnRoberts]

> I'll add the insulation anyhow.

You will find it is warm under the blanket. Makes perfect sense if you model the series-circuit. A chum cited this as a reason to wrap. I say it simply proves voltage-divider theory.

Yes, says the man with a heat sink patent... heat flow is well modeled by temp=voltage and heat flow =current.

I presume from the cold outer surface that there is already a pretty high thermal resistance and only modest heat leaking out. Adding the extra batting will reduce even that small heat flow, warming up that metal surface "exactly"  like a voltage divider between that internal 120F and ambient (unheated laundry room so cold in winter months). 

Another difference I notice about the PEX links in the plumbing lines leaving the heater, there seems to be more of temperature difference on either side of the short PEX links. I did not expect this because water is a good thermal conductor, but just maybe copper pipe is even better.

Mine had strict warnings not to wrap over the thermostat panels. There is an over-over-heat sensor calibrated for panel loss. If it cuts-out I dunno if it is re-set or replacement.

I did not find any such warning, and new heater shipped with a roll of insulation.

And of course the blow-off valve on top expects a certain thermal loss. Mine did come with a soft foam sock, so I assume the element is calibrated for that, but I left air-space around it.

Wouldn't blow off valve be pressure responsive more than temp. There are internal electrical high temp cut offs.

I am less-sure about insulating the top. The internal tank is round-top. This gives over 6" foam around the corners and most of the top area. The bottom is dished-in, so there should be some rim-loss, but no easy way to block that.

Right now it looks like the low hanging fruit for heat loss is the connected plumbing. I had the old stuff well wrapped, and have some modern foam wraps to attach.

> shouldn't be so easy for just anyone in my back yard to cut off my power.

Yeah, well.... I added a breaker box at the meter-pole 50 feet from the house. The panel is lockable, but the latch is so cheezy I didn't want to add struggle. Anybody really wants to make me dark can throw a nylon tow-strap over the wire and drive away.

> fire departments carry lock cutters.

Even easier: bust the meter seal and yank the meter.

This can be *dangerous*. But the standard gear for a fireman is similar enough to what the utility company wears to pull large meters. (My meter they don't even dress-up.)

I had thought this was standard practice in fires. But in a couple recent cases the firemen stood off and waited for BEco workers. Maybe it was not clear which wire went where.

(Secondary issue: pot-growers sometimes bypass the meter to run more gro-lights without being flagged for suspicious consumption. Maybe firemen were hurt when pulled meter did not kill power, and now they leave it to electric men.)

I am tempted to add a cheesy small suitcase lock, or maybe a cable tie that I can easily cut... just to make a little harder for the zombies wandering through my unfenced yard to mess with me.

JR

 

[joaquins]

...
I am tempted to add a cheesy small suitcase lock, or maybe a cable tie that I can easily cut... just to make a little harder for the zombies wandering through my unfenced yard to mess with me.

JR

I'd try to keep zombies out of my yard and my differential circuit breaker working, I guess I appreciate life more than you...

JS

 

[Gene Pink]

Wouldn't blow off valve be pressure responsive more than temp.

Either/both.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Thanx Gene...yes the instal guide says T&P relief valve so temp and pressure.

JR

 

[Gus]

You might want to read more about PEX
I was thinking of replacing the copper in my house with PEX.
I did not after I read about it.
search for PEX issues, Failures etc.

 

[JohnRoberts]

You might want to read more about PEX
I was thinking of replacing the copper in my house with PEX.
I did not after I read about it.
search for PEX issues, Failures etc.

Thanks for the heads up.. I asked the plumber how long he had been using PEX. He said 5 or 6 years with zero failures. (he lives about 5 houses up the road from me so I trust him to not use shoddy materials... I know where he lives.  ).

A quick google search revealed problems with the (high zinc) brass fixtures the PEX interface with, perhaps a "too cheap to work" issue instead of flawed technology, but I'll keep an eye open for leaks.

The full extent of PEX in my house is just the foot or so between the heater and my house copper plumbing, so out in the open and easy to watch.

JR

PS: Yesterday I wrapped the insulation blanket around it and after a couple hours the heater outer casing warmed up noticeably. The added insulation was 1" thick batting so decent thermal resistance (PRR's thermal "voltage" divider). The brass drain valve I swapped in for the cheap plastic one didn't easily fit through the standard hole they cut in the insulation blanket  ;D . I may add some more insulation to the lines connected to heater but already wrapped the first couple feet.