Gas Water Heater Repair

Learn To Troubleshoot Gas Hot Water Heater problems

If you own gas water heaters in your home, it may be useful to do your own gas water heater repair work yourself especially if you have done so for other home gas heaters. It would be convenient to learn how to to troubleshoot any gas hot water heater problems when they happen. You certainly don't want to call the experts in to fix the water heater problem each time it crops up. They can be costly and besides some of the problems are easy to fix and I've known of many people doing some simple gas water heater repair themselves.Firstly before you can do any of such repairs, you have to understand a little about how your gas heater works.

Gas Hot Water Heater-Understand How It Works:

Since most problems people faced are water heaters that come with a water tank (and not those tankless water heater), let's try to understand how these gas water heaters work.

Your tank type water heater heats up cold water and uses the tank to store the hot water that has been just heated. Depending on the gas heater model you have and how cold the surrounding temperature is it may take a few minutes longer to heat the water up.

The gas water heater works using convection method. Firstly the cold water gets heated up by the gas burner of the heater and once it is heated it follows the law of physics that this heated water rises up. What follows is the hot water discharge pipe draws this hot water from the tank for your using. Now in order that the heated water retains the heat, the water storage tank is made with some standard insulated material.  It’s quite a simple theory.

How To Troubleshoot Tank Type Water Heater:

Some of the problems you may encounter from your water heater include:

1. No hot water

2. Water is not hot enough

3. Dirty water

4. Water smells

5. Whining sound occurs

6. Water leaks out from heater

Safety Precautions-Before You Start Troubleshoot Your Gas Heater Problems:

1. Turn off the water supply

2. Turn the gas pilot control valve to pilot

Most Likely Reasons For These Failures:

1. There is no hot water - gas pilot, gas pilot control valve or gas thermocouple is not working

2. Insufficient hot water- your dip tube may be faulty and therefore no mixing of cold and hot water in tank was possible

3. Dirty Water - there is possible corrosion taking place inside the water tank. The anode rod, which functions to prevent any rusting, could be faulty and needs to be replaced. Such waters are contaminated by some bacteria and the water heater should not be used.

4. Noisy heater - noise is probably due to too much sediment at the bottom of water tank. This causes overheating and water boiling which explains the noise heard.

5. Leaking water tank - there is possible corrosion due to overheating. You could try to reduce the thermostat setting to ensure less heating. Check the bottom of the water tank for any obvious rusting and determine if the water heater needs to be replaced.

Learning some simple troubleshooting of your gas hot water heater problems is important not just because you wish to save some costs but more to ensure that your gas heater works safely all the time.