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Old 04-01-2018, 04:57 PM
 
309 posts, read 319,892 times
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Hello,
We have 2 water heaters and the first water heater when you push it feels heavy and the second one feels empty. I thought both water heaters should be both full. I FEEL like the hot water has less pressure in the house or it might just be in my head.

Are both water heaters suppose to be full?

Last edited by heartdurhamnc; 10-21-2019 at 07:46 PM..
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Old 04-01-2018, 05:10 PM
 
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Are you certain the second one is a water heater and not a pressure tank? Pics?
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Old 04-01-2018, 05:27 PM
 
309 posts, read 319,892 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea View Post
Are you certain the second one is a water heater and not a pressure tank? Pics?
Ops sorry here is the pic
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Old 04-01-2018, 06:10 PM
 
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The white pipe should be the supply. On the top of the left tank where it's connected it should be marked inlet or cold on the tank. The red pex on the left tank should be connected to the hot and then connected to the cold on the right tank. If it's reversed air can get trapped in the tank, especially the second one. You can also have other issues if they are connected incorrectly like sporadic water temperatures and very little really hot water.
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Old 04-01-2018, 06:46 PM
 
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Coalman is correct. You can easily discover if there is air trapped in a tank by burping the T&P valve in the center top of the tank, while holding the white drain pipe. If there is sputtering and the pipe remains cool, there is air. If the pipe gets hot and you hear water flowing, there is no appreciable air.

I'm trying to consider why tanks are in series like this, rather than some alternative. I guess that the setup makes sense if the first tank's electric supply is on a demand cut circuit with a lower power rate, and the downstream tank is primarily designed to energize only when there is heavy demand during the cut. However, I don't recall any company allowing such a set-up.

Brainstorming, I wonder about heated water going into that hydrojet dip tube, which is only designed for cold water, and if under certain conditions it might bubble and separate out any air dissolved in the water, to the point that it couldn't re-absorb. Replacing the dip tubes in both tanks with standard ones might resolve some problems.
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Old 04-01-2018, 08:55 PM
 
Location: Texas
5,717 posts, read 18,782,862 times
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Quote:
I'm trying to consider why tanks are in series like this, rather than some alternative. I guess that the setup makes sense if the first tank's electric supply is on a demand cut circuit with a lower power rate, and the downstream tank is primarily designed to energize only when there is heavy demand during the cut. However, I don't recall any company allowing such a set-up.

You need to get out of the office more Harry. This is a common installation on the more expensive Ryland Homes here in Texas. I have no clue if they do that nationwide but in Houston, San Antonio,and Dallas, you'll find a lot of 50 gallon heaters in series to give the home owner a 100 gallon capacity. At one time the industry was under the belief that the heater could not be set any higher than 125F at the tank. That doesn't give the unit much reserve capacity and folks were running out of hot water. This was their idea of a fix. Ryland also tried using a return line back to the heater only to find that a few years later, the return lines, which were copper, had pin holes in them and home owners were having leaks. The heat being an energy source, has to do work as it loses temperature. The work it was doing was eating the copper return lines. I did a bunch of those for them years back. We also installed a bunch of under the counter tankless electric heaters for the dishwashers since they couldn't get but 96F water by the time it ran its course thru the Pex, across the house and down a wall to the kitchen. FWIW, those were a disaster as well. Most didn't bring the water temp up but a few degrees but it sure did turn the electric meter. We never did get the required by the appliance maker 140F water to the dishwasher. At the time, it was a damn if you do and damn if you don't. All that was available down here were hot water heaters that were preset at the factory at 125F with no adjustment. With the scald event a possibility, everyone was covering their azz. Most builders were installing the Thermatrue plumbing fixtures that were governed down to delivering no more than 120F at the faucet. It was as big of a wreck here as the low flow commodes that didn't work when they first came out.
Don't know if this post is about Ryland house but they sure gave it a lot of their attention to make the home owner happy.
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Old 04-03-2018, 08:04 PM
 
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I don't see how air could get trapped in the tank unless the dip tube was on the wrong side. The air would come out the faucets.
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