Help! My Hot Water Is Out!
Imagine taking a long, hot shower after working all day in chilly temperatures. Now imagine in the middle of this grand time you get bombarded with a blast of not so warm water. Not a very comforting scenario is it? Times like this call for some quick resolution to a big problem. There are some things that you can do to get your hot water up and running again. You don’t always need to call the repairman.
Hot water heaters: What to check in order to fix it yourself?
One of the most overlooked things for electric hot water heaters is the breaker. Check to make sure that your hot water heater’s breaker is on and if it is not, find out why. Oftentimes a hot water heater is on its own breaker, sometimes not. The thing is though, you have to get to the bottom of this cause pretty quick if it happens again soon. There could be a blown fuse, if that’s the case you will have to fix that as soon as possible.
Another common problem for the electric hot water heater is the heating element. Scales, corrosion, or just plain defective heating elements can really send a shiver in your shower. Easy and economical to fix, this is a part that shouldn’t give you much trouble finding and replacing or repairing. Check your hot water heaters high limit switch for tripping. Also, thermostats are frequently a cause for cold blasts. They can be grounded, out of calibration or simply defective. You can do a fix on these problems most of the time without professional help.
For a gas powered hot water heater, there are some different parts to check into. Perhaps the all time most frequent occurrence is the pilot light going out. Check your gas supply, may be that you are lower than you thought! That’s an incredibly easy and non-invasive fix for no hot water. Next, check upon the burner orifice and pilot tube. There could be corrosion or a misshapen tube. A good cleaning or replacing may be in order.
When using a solar unit and experiencing a significant drop in hot water, you may want to consider a backup system that can kick in for times of adverse weather and falling temperatures. The check valve possibly needs a look to see if it may be stuck open. There really isn’t much that can be serviced by the average do it yourselfer when it comes to a solar hot water heater system, but that does not mean that you can’t try to figure out the problem and solution on your own.
A quick call to your local hardware store should grace you with valuable advice. Also, if you have a friendly relationship with your local plumber, you may want to give them a call and see what they say. Many of these problems will not cost you much to repair or replace the defective parts. Speaking of time, they are rarely all day projects. So try to do it yourself if at all possible and save some of your hard earned money and a little aggravation at having to arrange a repair. If you know someone who is handy around the house, they may be the one that you can call and do a sort of elimination type solution with over the phone. If they are handy with household repairs, chances are, they have encountered a hot water heater that has morphed into a cold water non-heater.
Troubleshooting guides find online
Another great resource can be troubleshooting guides on the internet and in your manufacturers operating manual or website. You can use a trouble shooting guide for various things, and an appliance repair is one of the most common. When researching for this make sure that you know the components that your hot water heater system has; also you may have a diagram to your water heater in the manual that will help you to know what parts are where. Knowing where your water heaters parts are can save you valuable time and keep you from needless stress.
Whatever the problem with your hot water heater is, try to identify and repair the ailing components yourself if at all possible. It really helps if you have prior experience, but that is not a requirement. With all of the resources available to you, inexperience doesn’t have to stop you from accomplishing the repair of your hot water heater. Remember that it is no shame to ask for advice or look up a trouble shooting guide for help. Of course, as a rule of thumb-call the plumber before you tear into something expensive if you have never done it and are unsure if the problem truly lies where you think.
