tezakhiago
New Member
Hi there,
I just bought a new house in Calgary AB almost one year ago. It is fitted with a high-efficiency gas hot water heater, that has both an intake and exhaust vent to the outside, located about 8 inches apart on the exterior wall. Both pipes are simple ~2.5" PVC piping that end in a 90 degree turn facing downwards, with no bug screens on the pipes.
We've had some bitter cold temperatures here in the last few weeks, and in the past week the hot water heater has stopped working 3 times. I am able to go outside and clear out frost that has built up inside the intake vent, which immediatly causes the water heater to start running again. We're not talking about a lot of frost, it's only a small amount. It's hard to tell if it's completely blocking the pipe because of the shape of the pipe, but it looks to me like it's just forming a layer around the interior wall of the pipe that's reducing the effective diameter of the pipe from ~2.5" to maybe 1.5". This is a recurring problem that has happened 3 times in 6 days but had not happened all winter long until now. As for weather, it was -30 degrees C when it first happened but had warmed up to -17 degrees when it happened last night. There has been no snow, but the amount of humidity in the air has increased.
We are still covered by a warranty for one more week (until March 15th), and we had the builder's plumber out on Monday to look at it. His response was 'this happens all the time, you just have to keep the intake clear of frost. There's nothing we can do'. Problem is, this isn't happening to our neighbours, so what is different about the design of their hot water system that they aren't affected by the cold and we are? Also, my furnace air intake is not clogging up.
Has anyone encountered an issue like this, and what can be done to fix it? Would poor design of where the intake vent is placed cause this? Any insight would be helpful.
I just bought a new house in Calgary AB almost one year ago. It is fitted with a high-efficiency gas hot water heater, that has both an intake and exhaust vent to the outside, located about 8 inches apart on the exterior wall. Both pipes are simple ~2.5" PVC piping that end in a 90 degree turn facing downwards, with no bug screens on the pipes.
We've had some bitter cold temperatures here in the last few weeks, and in the past week the hot water heater has stopped working 3 times. I am able to go outside and clear out frost that has built up inside the intake vent, which immediatly causes the water heater to start running again. We're not talking about a lot of frost, it's only a small amount. It's hard to tell if it's completely blocking the pipe because of the shape of the pipe, but it looks to me like it's just forming a layer around the interior wall of the pipe that's reducing the effective diameter of the pipe from ~2.5" to maybe 1.5". This is a recurring problem that has happened 3 times in 6 days but had not happened all winter long until now. As for weather, it was -30 degrees C when it first happened but had warmed up to -17 degrees when it happened last night. There has been no snow, but the amount of humidity in the air has increased.
We are still covered by a warranty for one more week (until March 15th), and we had the builder's plumber out on Monday to look at it. His response was 'this happens all the time, you just have to keep the intake clear of frost. There's nothing we can do'. Problem is, this isn't happening to our neighbours, so what is different about the design of their hot water system that they aren't affected by the cold and we are? Also, my furnace air intake is not clogging up.
Has anyone encountered an issue like this, and what can be done to fix it? Would poor design of where the intake vent is placed cause this? Any insight would be helpful.