Saturday, 21 Mar 2009
The Mystery of the Crying Wall & the Water Heater
3 weeks ago our housekeeper discovered that our water heater had been leaking water into the base pan (the collecting tray at the bottom of the unit). Fortunately, the pan did not appear to overflow thus I was not alarmed. In the picture above you can see the large 40 gallon water heater. The water heater is directly above my room in the attic. In the picture below I zoomed-in for a shot of the pan collecting really gross water (yes there are little pieces of rat shit floating in the pan):
Today, the gardeners discovered that the wall outside my bedroom was “crying”. Okay, it wasn’t really “crying” like pictures of Mary (Mother of Jesus) you hear in the news, but the wall was turning orange (mildew) and water was visibly leaking from the wall at the rate of 1 drop per 5 seconds.
Here’s a close-up of the water accumulating in the dirt from the “crying wall”:
Great. A leaky wall, what the hell does that mean?
I called my mom’s real estate manager suggested that I contact a General Contractor to tear down the wall and get at the pipes responsible for the leak. Meanwhile my housekeeper tells me that yesterday while cleaning my bathroom the hot water came out orange into the sink.
Great. Orange hot water… but I use my hot water everyday!
So I have 3 clues:
- Orange hot water inside my bathroom
- A “crying wall” outside my bathroom
- A leaky water heater located above my bedroom
Could they all be independent issues or could they perhaps be all connected? The proximity of the faulty heater made me incredibly suspicious and doubtful that these were independent issues. So I called a plumber/water heater specialist first because no matter what I would need to replace the leaky water heater. Hopefully this specialist would be able to examine the leaking wall.
The answer? Rust.
If you look carefully at the image below taken of the 40 gallon water heater, you’ll find that the water heater is from 1989. That’s almost 20 years ago! They’re only supposed to last 10-12 years.
What’s happening is that the tank has rusted/corroded from the inside. Therefore the rust is turning my water orange (1 mystery solved). The rust has corroded through the tank (likely through a fitting or a small place in the tank) and thus has created a small leak. This leak causes hot water to accumulate on the bottom of the catch-tray (2 mysteries solved). The tray however never overflows because there is a drain attached to a pipe.
Guess where the drain pipe leads? Yup. It leads down the attic along my bedroom wall to the outside of the house. This pipe is made of PVC and is leaking from a joint from the attic and causing water to drip through the wall causing the leaky/crying wall (3 mysteries solved).
The solution? Fix the water heater and all the problems go away. We’ll probably have to replace the broken PVC pipe connected to the catch-tray, but as long as the water heater doesn’t leak, the pipe won’t be in use and the wall should stop “crying”.
By the way, we have 2 water heaters (each 40 gallons) side-by-side in the attic. Only 1 is leaking. Both are about 20 years old. The specialist who provided the diagnosis also provided us an invoice of the repair for a new water heater (tankless) and installation:
Yup. $4,789 to replace 2 old water heaters and install a new one. Fortunately, this heater comes with up to a $1,500 rebate from the government and a $300 rebate from the manufacturer. That brings down the total cost of new water heater to just under $3,000 assuming we can get the rebates.
The story continues but most if not all the mysteries are solved. Hopefully the damage in the walls is not extensive enough to warrant a repair job once the leak has been resolved!
Update: I got a new estimate at $700 less than the estimate above. Furthermore I found out that the Noritz 931 needs more BTU than our gas lines can provide (where we are installing the water heater). Also I found out that the Noritz 931 does NOT qualify for the $1,500 federal rebate. Nor the $150 manufacturer’s rebate.
But the 841 does. We’re installing it on Wednesday!
posted at 1:34am
