Hot Water Heater Leaking from Overflow Pipe: A Guide To Troubleshooting

It’s a common occurrence: you wake up in the morning, turn on your hot water, and find that it’s not as hot as usual. You might also notice a puddle of water building up by the base of your hot water heater. If so, you may be dealing with the hot water leaking from overflow pipe. As the name implies, this pipe conveys any overflow from the tank assembly to an appropriate location. A leaking overflow pipe can cause significant damage to your home if left unchecked. Luckily for you, there are ways to troubleshoot and fix this problem. Read on for some ways to fix your leaking overflow pipe!

Where is the hot water heater leaking coming from?

The top main reason behind a Hot Water Heater Leaking is:

• A Temperature Pressure Relief Valve (TRP).
• Many specialists determine that temperature pressure is the common source of the Hot Water Heater Leaking.
• The temperature pressure relief valve is basically attached with your hot water heater and controls or maintains pressure of the water.
• When the excessive pressure is built inside the hot water heater, this temperature pressure relief valve helps in relieving pressure of the water.

How to care about Hot Water Heater Leaking?

Thus, it’s a very important part of hot water heater and must function properly to maintain the pressure of the water.

• This temperature pressure relief valve is not directly attach with the hot water pressure heater.
• Instead it is attached with a discharge pipe link with hot water heater.
• In most of the disasters caused by hot water heater pipe leaking from the top, the TRP valve is involved.

You may have an issues with the hot water coming out of overflow pipe. Are you wondering why is hot water coming out of my overflow pipe? Also check for the hot water tank overflow.

If you are wondering how this TRP doe’s valve is responsible and what it actually is, move to next section.

Causes and Effects of Hot Water Heater Leaking:

• The drain valve is also become the cause of water leakage, if the drainpipe or water heater overflow pipe water heater is loose.
• It starts from the slowly leaking of the water with the passage of time it become heavy flow of water with the pressure.
• The overflow of hot water will damage the drain pipes also.
• In the case where Water is spraying from the drainpipes or water heater will damage the other property.

It is important that you shut off the valve nearest the supply side of the leaks.

Read More: How to Test Temperature and Pressure Relief Valve | Repair & Replace

Reasons for Internal leakages:

If the tank is leaking there must be internal leak of hot water heater. There may be a lot of reasons hot water heater leaking.

• Leaking may be cause by the old pipes or by the water heater overflow pipe of hot water heater pipe leaking.
• May be leak in the drain pipes of the hot water system overflow pipe water heater running.
• Water may leak slowly from the water heater overflow pipe gushing pipes and overflow at the bottom of the tank.
• The built up sediment in the tank of hot water is considered as the main cause of leaking water.
• If sediment do not drain from the tank regularly, it makes cracks in the tank.

For this you must hire professional plumber to figure out the main cause of the leak in the hot water heater. The leak become worse with time and water pressure increases. During the internal leakage fittings, consideration should be given to installing a meter or meters on an internal boundary.

Drain valve:

At the bottom of the tank there must drain valve in every cold/hot water heater leaking from top.

• Drain valve is used to drain tank of water in order to plumbing or maintenance.
• The drain valve may get leak, sometime when handle hit on drain valve it become leak.
• The water from the hot water heater overflow at the bottom of the tank.
• If water continuous running out of hot water heater overflow and water heater overflow pipe gushing, you have to change drain valve.
• The water leaking from the drain valve is one the signs of a faulty water heater or a valve.
• If you can’t stop the leak it can damage the water heater overflow pipes and built rust at the bottom of the hot water tank overflow pipe.
• So you should hire the plumber and replace the drain valve as soon as possible.
• You should also ask plumber to install water sensor alarm with hot water heater, this will alarm you if leak happens.
• The water sensor can save cost of plumber and increase the life of hot water heater.
• It is the easy way which repairs it and saves you from major damages.
• The water sensor alarm should be on the top priority while installing cold/hot water heater overflow pipe
• Hot water tank overflow pipe dripping coming out of overflow pipe and the hot water tank overflow.

FOLLOWING ARE THE STEPS TO ASSESS THE SITUATION

Turn the Power off:

• Gas Water Heater –turn the dial off from the bottom of the water heater
• Electric Water Heater–breaker should be off for water heater from the main circuit.

Turn Off the Water Supply:

• At the top of water heater there is an inlet located at where water is entered in the tan for heating.
• To turn off the water supply you should turn the lever for off.
• This will stop the flow of water from pipes or tank in to the drain.
• The pressure of water heater stops immediately.
• At this time you can call the plumber or you can repair by yourself if you finds the leak.
• If the valve is broken, you can shut off the water to your house or garden.
• In the case of serious leaks problem where you can’t do professional repairs by yourself call the service of plumbing emergency as Hot Water Heater Leaking is causing create great floor and wall damages.
• You will need a licensed plumber to stop the drip.
• If you are not able to determine the local problem than check the inlet and outlet.
• The pipes that connect the water heater or the lose fittings maybe the source of the water leaks in the unit.

Generally, the water heater is set to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, however; the manufactories recommend you to set it on 120 degrees Fahrenheit if you thermostat does not have a degree reading. If you still notice the pressure relief valve leaking remove it and examine it to check the signs of corrosion.

TRP valve and why should I take care about it?

• TRP or temperature pressure relief valve is actually the pressure releasing valve used in homes or commercial level.
• This valve is usually embedding with other machinery or systems such as water heaters.
• For some systems, the temperature pressure relief valve is so important that they cannot work without it.
• One of such systems is the hot water heater overflow leaking.
• If hot water heater overflow or starts leaking, the damaged temperature pressure relief valve is usually the reason.
• It is critically important that the temperature pressure relief valve must work properly with your hot water heater overflow pipe.
• If TRP valve fail to work properly, the result will be the increased pressure inside your hot water heater.
• When the pressure will raise inside the hot water heater and will find no place to escape, it may explode.
• Yes! Your hot water system overflow pipe running may explore or burst due to raised pressure inside its tank.
• In this way, it may cause more damages to your home by damaging hot water heater and nearby things.
• Thus, it is important to take care of this temperature pressure relief valve for safety concerns.
• Not only for the safety concerns, but also for the proper working of your hot water heater.
• This will also maintain the pressure in the pipes of hot water heater overflow leaking, and prevent them from the damage or leak.

How can I check the TRP valve myself in case of hot water heater leaking from overflow pipe?

In case of hot water heater leaking from overflow pipe, you must take an action immediately. The first step that you need to do for checking hot water heater leaking is to check TRP valve. To stop the hot water heater leaking from overflow pipe, make sure to do the following task.

• Remove discharge pipe from temperature pressure relief valve.
• Place a bucket at the bottom of TRP valve and slowly open the valve.
•  Make sure to protect your hands from the hot water burst from TRP valve.
• When you slowly open the temperature pressure relief valve, the hot water will come out with pressure.
• If hot water doesn’t come out with pressure, it means that your temperature pressure relief valve is out-of-order.
• If so, make sure to repeat this process again or go for replacing TRP valve from water heater.

Whether it is a cold water or a hot water heater, you must keep on checking your water heater overflow valves. For example, you may plan to decide the top or bottom valves of hot or cold water heater at every weekend. If not on every weekend, you must check them at least once or twice in a month for better performance. You will get the answer to why is hot water coming out of my overflow pipe?

How much it costs to replace a TRP valve by myself at home?

If you want to replace the TRP valve attached with your hot water heater, you can easily do it yourself. If your home’s hot water heater is leaking from overflow pipe, you can replace it by following the below procedure. The procedure for replacing a TRP valve link with overflowing pipe is very simple, as discussed in the below section.

By following these steps, you can easily do it. All you have to do is to buy a new TRP valve that will cost you approximately $20-$30 only. You can buy it from any sanitary store and replace it with the procedure discussed below at the overflowing pipe. In this way, it would also save your money as you wouldn’t have to pay anyone for replacing the valve.

How can I replace the TRP valve

In order to replace the temperature pressure relief valve of hot water heater, simply follow these steps:

• First and on the top, find the entering point of cold water in the tank.
• Turn it off so that the cold water couldn’t enter in the system.
• If your system is on gas, turn off the gas supply.
• If this is on electricity system, turn of the electricity supply completely.
• At any other place inside your home, turn on the supply of hot water.
• In this way, the hot water will drain and no vacuum or pressure will form.
• At the bottom side of tank, insert a hose to the side of spigot. Again, drain water from there to a point that the water surface is reached below the valve level.
• It also depends on the position of the valve on the tank. If the valve is at the bottom side of the tank, you need to drain more water till bottom of valve.
• If it is in the middle, you need to drain about half of the water. If it is at the top of the tank, draining just one or two gallons will be enough.
• The new valve that you want to fix in place of old valve, must meet with the temperature and pressure requirements.

Additional Information

• It must comply with the settings of your temperature pressure relief valve as well as you hot water heater.
• Take a pipe wrench and start moving it in the anti-clockwise direction to loosen the previous TRP valve.
• When it gets loose, take it off from the overflowing water pipe with your hands.
• In this way, the old temperature pressure relief valve will get separated from your hot water heater.
• Take plumber’s tape and wrap it thoroughly and effectively around the new valve’s threaded part.
• Again, take the pipe wrench and through using it, fix the new temperature pressure relief valve.
• Make sure to fix it at the same place from where you took out the old TRP valve.
• Now, your TRP valve is easily replaced. In order to check its performance, make sure to open the cold water supply and power supply to the system.
• Wait till the hot water heater system again starts working and check it is performing tis job well.

If you still face an issue, it is recommended to consult with a professional. This is important because there are chances that you fail to perform this replacement task as required. There are also chances that there are some other issues or damages at your Hot Water Heater Leaking that you are unable to predict. However, never ignore the little damages or issues with your hot water heater leaking for the required security of your home.

Should I hire a professional service for replacing the TRP valve of hot water heater?

Yes! You can surely hire a professional service for any of the plumbing or sanitary task. There are a number of good companies that have professionals working for such tasks. If you have no plumbing or sanitary experience, and have no tools then it is good to hire a professional service. This is because without having any experience in this field, you may fail to replace temperature pressure relief valve effectively.

As a result, your hot water heater leaking continue from overflow pipe. In this condition persists; it may explode or make more damages to your home. In contrast, the professionals know how to do their task effectively and accurately in a timely manner.

How much it costs to hire a professional service for replacing TRP valve of hot water heater?

If you want to hire a professional service for replacing your TRP valve of hot water heater, the cost would vary. It would vary because the cost of hiring professional service depends on different factors. For example, it would depend on the location where you are living and the location or service providing company.

It would also depend on the company that you are contacting for replacing your hot water heater’s TRP valve. It also depends on whether there are more system damages to resolve or only the TRP valve needs replacement. However, an estimated cost of hiring a professional service would be around $150-$200 depending on the above factors.

by : Home Service Doctors