it's all right there in the attic. sitting next to each other. heaters are probable 6ft away from the the ac/furnace
Tank Water heater in the attic.
- Thread starter parshisa
- Start date
Yeah, tons of houses are setup like that. Its counter intuitive but it works just fine!
Not really. Putting any HVAC equipment or ducts in the attic is an energy waste. It probably shortens the lifespan of the equipment, too.
I "flushed" mine before, nothing came out. It didn't really extend the life either, and when they "leak" I replace them. Some lasted only 5 years (apartment shared water heater near a dryer vent), others lasted 25 years in mildly hard water area.
I'd be more worried about attic water heater leaking than flushing. $255 is too much to pay for a flush if you cannot do it yourself, I'd use that money to change the water heater every 10-15 years instead, or leak diversion if there is such a thing. Flooding from the attic is no fun.
I'd be more worried about attic water heater leaking than flushing. $255 is too much to pay for a flush if you cannot do it yourself, I'd use that money to change the water heater every 10-15 years instead, or leak diversion if there is such a thing. Flooding from the attic is no fun.
If there's a pan and a gas and water shut off I wouldn't bother. I have 10+ water heaters and never flush them. You should just change out the anode rod, I've got 20+ years out of a water heater by changing the rod. Once the rod wears out, the water heater will start to rust. At your age, it might not be too late, rod is probably almost gone or gone. I used to get them for around $14 with free shipping but the cost of everything is up, maybe Home Depot with free ship to store. Basically an extra thick rod that's also long. If it's too long, you just cut it with a sawsall. Factory ones may be thinner and not last as long.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Rheem-PROTECH-0-900-in-Dia-Magnesium-Anode-Rod-SP11526C/311393216
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Rheem-PROTECH-0-900-in-Dia-Magnesium-Anode-Rod-SP11526C/311393216
One friend has the neighbor's water heater "cracked" and it is in an apartment upstair of his. Flooding his unit and he had a lot of repair to do.
One time my office building had a water heater flood from 2/F. The whole building ran out of power and about 9000 sqft of lab space has flooded, need to be remodeled. Took like 6 months and probably 500k on work alone, not considering impact on our work hour loss.
Actually is it, I've many a friend in NC that have them.. Funny enough (and I agree about the efficiency issue with you) there are some engineers who think that it is more efficient up there, because the ac unit is so close to the airbox, thinking the shortest run of ac lines saves energy. Wiithout seeing the numbers, I agree with you there.
Basically needed a WAGS valve and a drain. Shuts off the water and gas and the drain takes care of the 30-50 gallons of water in the tank.
https://www.wagsvalve.com/the-wags-valve/
https://www.supplyhouse.com/Aquaguard-WAGS7200-4W-Water-Safety-Shut-Off-Valve
All mine are in the basement though so I don't bother, the floor just gets a little wet when they leak.
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would be worth checking the sacrificial anode, if you replace those on a constant basis (every two years) you can extend the water heaters life by a very long time, not sure about Bradford water heaters having serviceable heating elements, but if those can be changed too I would stock up on a couple pairs if I were you. Oh and the overflow valve , you should test that too.
They typically last at least 4-5 years on the factory ones. The factory ones tend to be thinner. The thickest ones I could find were the .9 inch ones, some factory ones are as thin as 1/2 inch. Those .9 ones seem to be lasting me about 8-10 years or more. Just did a 3rd round recently and they weren't completely gone after 8-9 years.
All good items to include in specifications and features for his next unit. I highly doubt the builder quality unit has any serviceable parts or features. Next unit? Get all these serviceability specs, and yes an awesome feature would be a serviceable anode accessible easily .
I had a house that just had DUCTS in the attic. Here's what happened:
In the summer:
30 seconds of hot air blasting out of every top floor vent before it got cold
In the winter:
30 seconds of cold air blasting out of every top floor vent before it got warm.
My mom's house has the AC/furnace in the attic and it's the same story, except the hot and cold air blasts out of every vent in the entire house, not just the top floor. And I've had to replace more parts on that furnace than any other I've ever dealt with, including the circuit board..
The builder of my current house states in their brochure about their energy-efficiency features that they don't install any HVAC equipment or ducts in the attic. And one study showed that putting the AC/furnace in the attic increased the heat load by 6000 BTU.
Pretty much all water heaters have access to the anode rod on the top of the tank. Some might be hidden it under the water inlet tubes, but I've never run into those. But it's basically a 1 1/16 inch socket to take them out. Might be hard to take out after many years. Which is why I bought a Milwaukee 2767. 1400 foot pounds of torque in reverse. Took them out like nothing. Years before, had to use an 18 inch breaker bar and that only worked on half of my water heaters, had to come back with a 3 foot pipe extension in order to get the rest of them off and it took 3 guys, two to grab the water heater while the 3rd did the wrenching. Milwaukee took care of them all like nothing, just a little hammering they all zipped right off and it was a one person job. Use shark bites to cut the hot and cold water fittings and then just tip the water heater to slide in the longest rod you can. If you have a short water heater, you measure how far the new one goes and just cut the new one to length. I find it annoying that they actually charge you more for a shorter anode rod.
So, I would be scared chitless applying that much torque to it. I've had some really important bolts shear off before that caused me hours of grief. I too have some decent tools and my 1/2 impact has a 650 ft/lb rating... But yours sounds like a monster!
So where are the ducts ?
The supply ducts are located below the floor and above the ceiling in my new house (all the registers are in the floor). And the return duct is in a chase from the top floor to the bottom floor.
It requires a little more skill to design and install this than it does to throw some flex duct up in an attic....
EDIT: And in my old house, the ducts for the top floor are in the attic, laying on top of the insulation and ceiling joists.
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everything is in the attic. and just like described above, hot in summer, cold in winter. dumbest setup i've ever seen. I've measured the air temp coming into and it's substantially hotter than temp of the air sucked in from the house. So yes, HVAC equipment has to work hard for 8 months out of the 12.
Hopefully you have a drip pan and it's aluminum. My last house had the WH on the second floor, in a closet, with a cheap plastic drip pan. Seems that years of being next to the gas burner and having lots of weight on it made it crack into a few pieces. When it let go, I found out the hard way when I felt a drip on my head in the downstairs bathroom. Fortunately, it was just dripping and the ceiling just got a little damp spot. New WH got an aluminum pan.
yessir, it's aluminum
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