Water Heaters
Whether you're looking for general Water Heater Information or Water Heater Services, at A Water Heater.com you'll find the answers for all your questions.
The first thing to know about Water Heaters is that any and all Water Heater adjustments or repairs should be handled by a professional Water Heater Service or plumber qualified to work on your home's water heater. The potential dangers involved with the improper handling of you water heater are too great to risk you family's health and safety.
These same potential hazards are also the reason why regular and routine Water Heater Inspections are a must for you family's health and safety.
Water heaters operate by taking cold water flow into your house, passing it over a heating element, and sending it to faucets and other water hookups. The machine itself is ingenious in its simplicity. In both gas and electric water heaters, cold water flows into the top of the tank and falls to the bottom.
In a gas appliance, the water is heated by a fire at the bottom of the tank; in an electric appliance, water passes through two or more heating elements inside the tank at various heights. When cold water is heated it rises to the top of the tank and is purged when a faucet or water hookup valve is opened.
Therefore, water heaters can continually send hot water through the lines despite the cold water that flows into the tank. This only fails if the tank is fully emptied of hot water before the heating elements have time to warm the new water.
Tankless Water Heaters
Another, newer technology to water heaters is the invention of the tankless water heater. Tankless water heaters operate by using very powerful heat exchangers - essentially the same idea as heating elements - which are activated when water begins to flow.
The tankless water heater provides advantages due to its size. Because it can forgo the large tank of traditional water heaters, tankless units can be placed anywhere from a small crawlspace to the cabinet directly below sinks.
So called "point-of-use" tankless water heaters are placed very near the destination outlet (faucet, shower, etc.) and provide low lag times, or the amount of time it takes to purge cold water from the hot water line. Still, there are disadvantages.
Sometimes many tankless units are required to provide hot water to a large home, and currently, tankless units are a far cry more expensive than traditional tank water heaters.
Protective devices are necessary because water heaters can be dangerous appliances. The fact that pressurized, often scalding hot water is being contained in a tank allows the water heater to have potentially explosive force.
Some pressure devices include the pressure relief valve and anode. The pressure relief valve is an opening on the side of the tank that is set to open at a certain pressure. Before a malfunctioning water heater can over pressurize the tank and cause an explosion, the relief valve will open and drain the tank.
The anode is another important protection device exclusive to electric water heaters. By manipulating electrical properties, anodes can lengthen the life of the steel tank by diverting rust to the anode itself. However, as the anode rusts it will disintegrate - therefore it is called "sacrificial."