Hot water tank issues

[BokCh0y]

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You could rent a hotel for a couple nights and still come out ahead.

Yeah back then when my wife wasn't a porkchop like now, could've driven to banff and back, stayed at the banff springs too hahaha

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Ya maybe a poverty hotel. Like 4 star, ewww.

Hey hey, we're rolex owners, give me some credit


On another note, looks like I made a post about my Rheem hot water tank here in Nov 2015 and it costing $1008 from Pete blah blah, so Looks like I'm roughly 1.5 years I'll be posting an update that I got another Rheem from Pete for $xxxx.xx hahaha

[16hypen3sp]

Wife text me a couple nights ago. Said she ran a bath and there was no hot water. Only lukewarm at best. I was away working so I FaceTimed her and ran a start sequence on the hot water tank. It did its normal start and ran but then cut out. I had her take the thermostat down to minimum and close the gas valve until I got home.

Got home this morning and turned the thermostat to max. Heater ran as normal. Went to downstairs bathtub and turned faucet to max hot and only got lukewarm water. Went back to the tank and set my sights on the thermostatic mixing valve. Hot water piping into the valve was very hot. Cold water in was cold, but the outlet was just barely warm. There's the problem. Valve is stuck. I did a quick google search which showed many others with the same problem. I tried turning the valve by hand but it was seized, a problem that another's also had lol. There was a plumbing video that showed a plumber take the cap off and grab the brass fitting with a pair of channel locks. I used vice grips and with just a little bit of force, I was able to break thru the resistance and then I was able to turn the valve by hand throughout its entire travel. I kept the tub flowing and cycled the valve. Set it back to hot and tested the water temperature at the tub. Tempered hot water is back and flowing beautifully to all faucets throughout the house now. Easy 5 min fix.

Tank is a 50USG Polaris PR50-130-2NV. Condensing type and stainless steel. Never seen one before. Was manufactured in October 2022 and installed by previous owners sometime in early 2023. I originally thought I was facing a flame failure due to a smoked ignitor as these tanks have their ignitors double as an electronic flame sensor but she was all good.


Honeywell AM-1 Series thermostatic mixing valve. Another quality Honeywell product! I guess it could be worse.... Most people change out the guts on these things with a rebuild kit, a task that is very likely to be in my future.



The heater had been running and supplying us with hot water since we moved into the place in June. But I found that it would cut out before it got to its temperature setpoint. Not sure if it was hitting its ECO or not but I decided to break into the combustion air supply piping to find the air filter that these units ship with. Yah..... the filter was a touch on the dirty side lol. Cleaned it up and no more early cut outs since!!!

[msommers]

Damn, nice job man!

[firebane]

Is there a reason that the mixing valve is needed? Isn't that what the temp dial on the tank already does?

[16hypen3sp]

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Is there a reason that the mixing valve is needed? Isn't that what the temp dial on the tank already does?

Scalding code I think. The tap on our ensuite bathtub is split... one tap for hot and one tap for cold rather than having a mix at the tap like most faucets I've dealt with. Needs to be a mixing valve to prevent scalding from the hot tap. But I'm not 100% sure, this was what an HVAC guy was telling me a while back...

[g-m]

Tankless. It's the only option

[jabjab]

I'm in a similar boat. Deciding to convert my electric water to the following options:
1.Tankless gas
2.combi boiler
3.hybrid electric and venting a hot air supply to it for more efficiently

https://www.hotwater.com/products/pr...100361834.html

[denofslack]

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Scalding code I think. The tap on our ensuite bathtub is split... one tap for hot and one tap for cold rather than having a mix at the tap like most faucets I've dealt with. Needs to be a mixing valve to prevent scalding from the hot tap. But I'm not 100% sure, this was what an HVAC guy was telling me a while back...

I don't think it is general code - but not a plumber. My house had that when we bought in because a previous owner ran a dayhome out of the house.

It had failed at some point so when tank was set to max temp to actually get warm water from the taps. Was looking at a replacement tank - and negotiated the cost into the sale of the home - but plumber suggesting trying to remove the mixing valve first and it fixed it so we could set tank to normal temp.
Of course tank ended up failing a couple of years later anyways - guessing it shortened the life being at max temp for a few years.

[firebane]

I know what the valve is for. Just seems like a redundant system that is unnecessary. Unless as a human you struggle to mix hot + cold water at the tap, of which then there are bigger issues.

[prae]

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I know what the valve is for. Just seems like a redundant system that is unnecessary. Unless as a human you struggle to mix hot + cold water at the tap, of which then there are bigger issues.

I'd always assumed it was to increase the effective capacity of your domestic hot water. eg. if you store 50gal of water at 120F, versus the same volume at 160F, you would need less volume of hot water, for the same output temp at your fixtures. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ExtraSlow]

Doesn't the thermostat on the tank do that?

[Tik-Tok]

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I know what the valve is for. Just seems like a redundant system that is unnecessary. Unless as a human you struggle to mix hot + cold water at the tap, of which then there are bigger issues.

It's because too many people burnt the shit out of their kids because they were terrible parents and didn't pay attention to how hot the water was when filling a bathtub.

Pretty much the reason we have most modern codes. Stupid people doing stupid people things ruin it for the rest of us.

[ExtraSlow]

yeah.

[ThePenIsMightier]

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It's because too many people burnt the shit out of their kids because they were terrible parents and didn't pay attention to how hot the water was when filling a bathtub.

Pretty much the reason we have most modern codes. Stupid people doing stupid people things ruin it for the rest of us.

But how can we extract the money from these stupid people?

[StreetRacerX]

Pretty cool tank, we had someone call in for one of these with an ignition error tonight actually, super uncommon hot water tank. I've only seen one before and it was a few years ago, had to replace the ignition control board and it needed to be air freighted from Ontario as no one stocked parts for the thing.

[StreetRacerX]

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Wife text me a couple nights ago. Said she ran a bath and there was no hot water. Only lukewarm at best. I was away working so I FaceTimed her and ran a start sequence on the hot water tank. It did its normal start and ran but then cut out. I had her take the thermostat down to minimum and close the gas valve until I got home.

Got home this morning and turned the thermostat to max. Heater ran as normal. Went to downstairs bathtub and turned faucet to max hot and only got lukewarm water. Went back to the tank and set my sights on the thermostatic mixing valve. Hot water piping into the valve was very hot. Cold water in was cold, but the outlet was just barely warm. There's the problem. Valve is stuck. I did a quick google search which showed many others with the same problem. I tried turning the valve by hand but it was seized, a problem that another's also had lol. There was a plumbing video that showed a plumber take the cap off and grab the brass fitting with a pair of channel locks. I used vice grips and with just a little bit of force, I was able to break thru the resistance and then I was able to turn the valve by hand throughout its entire travel. I kept the tub flowing and cycled the valve. Set it back to hot and tested the water temperature at the tub. Tempered hot water is back and flowing beautifully to all faucets throughout the house now. Easy 5 min fix.

Tank is a 50USG Polaris PR50-130-2NV. Condensing type and stainless steel. Never seen one before. Was manufactured in October 2022 and installed by previous owners sometime in early 2023. I originally thought I was facing a flame failure due to a smoked ignitor as these tanks have their ignitors double as an electronic flame sensor but she was all good.


Honeywell AM-1 Series thermostatic mixing valve. Another quality Honeywell product! I guess it could be worse.... Most people change out the guts on these things with a rebuild kit, a task that is very likely to be in my future.



The heater had been running and supplying us with hot water since we moved into the place in June. But I found that it would cut out before it got to its temperature setpoint. Not sure if it was hitting its ECO or not but I decided to break into the combustion air supply piping to find the air filter that these units ship with. Yah..... the filter was a touch on the dirty side lol. Cleaned it up and no more early cut outs since!!!

Pretty cool tank, we had someone call in for one of these with an ignition error tonight actually, super uncommon hot water tank. I've only seen one before and it was a few years ago, had to replace the ignition control board and it needed to be air freighted from Ontario as no one stocked parts for the thing.

[16hypen3sp]

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Pretty cool tank, we had someone call in for one of these with an ignition error tonight actually, super uncommon hot water tank. I've only seen one before and it was a few years ago, had to replace the ignition control board and it needed to be air freighted from Ontario as no one stocked parts for the thing.

Yah I’m kind of dreading the ignition problems that will inevitably come. Does the ignition control board being a black box next to the main board ring any bells? Everything is underneath the tank so you pretty much need to lay on your stomach or side to work on them.

Very, very expensive tank too!