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Julie Bove[_2_] Julie Bove[_2_] is offline
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Default OT Water Heater Help!

We bought this house in 2004. Gas water heater in "garage". Garage meaning
that this room has no heat and has a garage type door. The door is almost
the width of my van, minus the side mirrors. The inside does extend
slightly beyond the door but not by much. It does go slightly deeper on
part of the one side where the small work bench is. Then beyond that is a
small piece of wall, then the water heater set back between that piece of
wall and a utility sink. Water heater is on a metal, elevated platform.
The rest of the room is used for storage as it is too small to drive either
of our vehicles into it.

So... Dec. 31 at midnight, I went out there to get some soda pop and saw
rusty water beginning to trickle out of the water heater. Husband
immediately shut something off. The water to it? Not sure. At any rate,
he did the right thing according to Day and Nite Plumbing. At some point
that day, they came out and installed a new Bradford White tank. They also
had to retrofit it and put one of those little tanks (overflow?) at the top.
Plumber had a super hard time getting the new one in the tight space because
the newer tanks are not quite as tall and much bigger around. He also redid
the silver things (pipes?) at the top because he said they were comical.
Past owner remodeled this house and badly so likely they did this. Whatever
this pipe/tube thing was, it was far too long and rather than cutting it
off, they just put a bizarre series of loops in it. Plumber said he had
never seen anything like it.

A few months went by. No problems. Then the pilot light went out. We
hadn't had a windy day and I was baffled. I relit it although I had a lot
of problems getting it to light. This kept happening, at first at 2-3 month
intervals, then more like every few weeks.

When we bought the house, there had been a small piece of pegboard cut to
fit that had been sitting loose and propped at the bottom of the stand that
the tank is on. Plumber took that out as it would not fit the space with
the new tank, sticking out off of the stand as it is.

My dad surmised that somehow the pegboard was preventing the wind from
getting up under the tank and advised me to put something else there. Which
I did. Three baking pans in assorted sizes. You see in the middle of the
tank at the bottom, some parts jut downwards which is why I needed a small
sized pan for the middle.

Problems continued and got more frequent. When I found myself having to
relight weekly, I called the plumber again. This time he said I may have
caused the problem by putting the baking pans there. Obviously not as the
problem had occurred prior and that is why I put them there.

The wires on the front had been hanging loose. I never thought that looked
right. He wound up replacing those, the thermocoupler and all but one other
part in there. Can't remember what that was.

Tank was fine for about 2 months then the problems began again. Getting
worse and worse with annoying frequency until I had to relight it 6 times in
one day! So I called again. Had been putting off calling because even
though it is under warranty, the warranty does not include labor. And it
seems to cost me a minimum of $250 each time they come out.

Plumber said that he needed for me not to relight the tank and to call them
right away to get a code from it. The problem there? It often goes out in
the middle of the night. They can't come out right away despite them
claiming to offer 24/7 service. And that code is gone after about a half an
hour. So because they can never seem to get the error code, they are pretty
much shooting in the dark as to what is wrong with it.

So on Sept. 15, 2012, they wound up just giving me a new tank. Turns out
that the one they had installed prior was totally dented up on the back
side. I thought perhaps this was the problem. I sat there in the garage
watching this other plumber like a hawk. My normal plumber had the day off.
No problems so far as I could see.

Can't remember how long this tank lasted before the pilot light went off.
But it did. And at first it was like 2-3 months between times. But now?
We are down to about once a week, sometimes twice a week. It's to the point
where I find myself checking it hourly when home and always just before I go
to bed. Sometimes it is windy when this happens but often not. Plumber did
say that the only other thing that could be a problem is the roof vent.
Which when I do call them again, I will have them check. But... This last
time I played hell relighting it. Tried for about a half an hour before it
would light. And of course in the middle of the night.

So... Any clues? People keep telling me it is the thermocouple and online
searches say the same but... Searches also tell me that the thermocouple
should last longer than that. And the weird part is that once the problems
do start, they seem to follow the same pattern of coming with increasing
frequency. Also weird that the old tank never had to be relit.

Could it be just because this one sticks out further into the room?
Sometimes when I am working out there with the garage door to the outside
open, it does go out. I am just getting frustrated! I want hot water and I
don't want to keep calling the plumber. Also can't afford to go with those
thankless things. Not sure how many we'd have to get. This is a small
house but we do have two bathrooms. Also a laundry room and that garage
sink. I think if I have read this correctly, I would need a tank for each
sink. Not sure how the laundry room factors in so... Maybe 4 tanks? Also
not sure where those tanks would be located but... Too rich for my blood so
not an option.

Anyone have any suggestions?