Gas Water Heater ??

When the burner is on in my gas water heater I hear a sound that must be a tiny drip of water hitting the burner flame. I'm assuming there is a pin hole in the tank wall in the center flu of the heater.

Some facts here. The heater was installed new in this home 7 years ago, I've lived in it 2 years. I recently disconnected it to put in a catch pan and drain pipe to direct the water over a drop in the garage floor. The heater was sitting on a floor with about a 3 degree slope toward the living quarters. In the process I changed out the copper for flexible conections.

While doing this I noticed the lower 3' section of flu pipe was single wall and it had some major corosion holes so I replaced it with a double wall stack that matched the rest of the flu stack. I also noticed what I thought was a lot of fine debris on the top of the heater tank. I suspect this may come from a combustion problem possibly because of the water leak. I have not seen any water in the new pan.

One other thing here. In reinstalling the heater I replaced the common galvanized inlet and outlet pipe nipples with ones with a lining to prevent dialectric corrosion. There seemed to be considerable crap at the inlet side.

At Last my question!!! Am I correct in that the use of common galvanized nipples by the installer of this heater could have accelerated the corrosion of the tank and the dripping sound I hear along with the crap from the flu on top is all signs of premature failure of the heater?

The tank itself is well protected from corrosion by the anode rod....for the life of the rod, which is about 3 to 6 years. Your corrosion was the nipples themselves.

The dripping you hear is not necessaryily a sign of any leak. You would see a lot of water continuously under the heater if there was a leak.

It is very common at startup of a gas WH to have some dripping, which you hear sizzling on the burner. The bottom of the tank is very cold initially, and the combustion product from the burner has a high moisture content. This hits the cold tank bottom and condenses. It does not happen a lot once in service, unless you use a lot of hot water, resulting in the inflow of a lot of cold water. It will also be more common in the winter when your ground water is colder.

kenginnyd said:

At Last my question!!! Am I correct in that the use of common galvanized nipples by the installer of this heater could have accelerated the corrosion of the tank and the dripping sound I hear along with the crap from the flu on top is all signs of premature failure of the heater?

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Are you sure they are galvanized nipples and not the dielectric heat sinks that the box stores sell. Inspectors here want to see a heat sink or loop above the tank to "stop unwanted heat loss".

Jimbo is right on startup the tank will drip from condensation, but it should stop after a couple of hours if not you might have a leak. I have seen new tanks fail if they have a leak above them in as little as one year if left unrepaired. If you had a leak and repaired it then the insulation could be wet and dripping a bit, if it is a "slow leak" it won't last long and it will become a big leak. The wet insulation will cause the tank to fail prematurely, but there is really nothing you can do about it. Just repace it when it fails.

In the winter especially my State will hiss as very cold water causes condensation that drips down to the burner. I also thought that my WH was leaking, but evidently years later it isn't.

If you have a Whirlpool unit especially the smart water heater this a problem they have. According to the Whirlpool tech's they swet..LOL rotflmao....that is right they swet a normal occurance even though this sweating can put out the piolet light....again rotflmao...if it is a whirlpool run forest runnnnnnnn they have several recalls on this hunk of junk I know just bought one last year and was the proud owner for 3 months until i shoved it back down Whirlpools throat via my local Lowes. and then bought a better brand. No swetting now and no recalls either. Sometimes it pays to shop at a plumbing store and pay a little more and save the grief! Hope this might be of help.