
No Hot Water
Shut the fuel or the breaker to the unit and call if you find water underneath the tank or smell gas anywhere near it.
When this becomes an emergency
- A shower that turns cold within a few minutes and doesn't recover for hours.
- The burner or the elements never coming on at all.
- Water that comes out cloudy and clears from the bottom of the glass upward.
- A tank that's cold at the bottom and warm only at the top.
What a pro does
Hot water problems in New York homes split along a line most people don't think about, which is where the water itself comes from. On village or city supply the usual suspects are the ones you'd expect: a failed element, a bad thermostat, a thermocouple gone soft, a gas valve that isn't opening. On a well, and a great many homes in the Adirondacks, the Catskills and the farm country between them are on wells, there's more to check. Sediment and iron from a well settle into the bottom of a tank far faster than treated water does, and dissolved iron will foul an electric element until it can barely make heat. So the plumber tends to look at the whole water supply rather than the heater alone. Incoming temperature matters as well. Groundwater arrives near freezing here in late winter, so a heater that coped in September genuinely can't keep up in March, and undersizing shows itself seasonally. The plumber checks recovery rate against household demand before condemning anything. A sound tank gets parts. Where the shell itself is leaking, though, there's no part in the van that fixes that.
Frequently asked questions
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