Imploded Hot Water Heater, with pics

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Steve N.

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Can you explain this?

I'm new to this board, not really into DIY fixes, but after seeing this, and googling it, and finding very little on it, and reading a thread about how it's impossible, I just had to post it here and get some answers.

It really looks like it's imploded, right? The dents go all the around, 360.
 

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Jadnashua

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WH are designed for 150psi pressure, and tested to 300psi. But, if you can create a vacuum in one, it doesn't take much at all to cause it to collapse. Try sucking the air out of a plastic water bottle - you probably can't create more than a few psi of negative pressure. Course, if the tank was empty, you could crush it externally, too. You can get about 0.43#/foot of elevation with water. All of the safety features on a tank are for excessive pressure, which is why some places require a vacuum breaker to prevent a vacuum from causing damage (not all that easy to cause).

In a basement, you could get this if you say shut off the inlet, and were trying to pump it dry for some reason. Gravity could do it if it were higher, but I don't think it would be enough with just a hose unless it could be run downhill some. I've never tried to collapse a WH, so don't know how much it takes.
 

Terry

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The wrapper on the water heater looks like someone took a hammer to it.
You would need to remove the outer metal cover to see what the tank behind the insulation looks like.
How old is that? Most of the AO Smith that I've seen with the color scheme were installed twenty plus years ago.

If that had imploded, I would expect to see water leaking from it. What does the top look like?
 

Master Plumber Mark

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Is this water heater in your home>>>/??

was it normal looking a short while ago and just
did this implosion recently??


or is this just some picture you found on the internet??'


I agree with Terry, and would have to cut that pig open and
see the inner tank to verify that it implodeed

thank you
 

Steve N.

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It's a 20+ year old water heater in my basement, which I married into. I'm sad to say, it has looked like this an operated for 4 years. I'm just now wrapping my head around the damage to it, and am surprised it's still been working great. After doing research on what it could be/mean, I was surprised to find such little information about it. I thought that if a water heater could look like this, and be working for years, it was a normal thing. I'm realizing it's not, and it's being replaced next week.

My theory was that it was hit by a hammer when the previous owner was foreclosed on, however, the fact that the indentations wrap around the unit make that theory weak, because it't not like they'd remove the furnaces next to the WH to smash it in the rear.
 

Reach4

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Maybe they got a good deal when they installed it because "it fell off of a truck". :D

Seriously, I wonder if that was not pre-install damage either in the warehouse or on the way to its current spot. You could measure the capacity of the water heater and compare it to the rated capacity. If it were actual implosion, the capacity should be very much reduced. If the shell took some external damage, the capacity would probably not be reduced much.

I would put a Watchdog Water Alarm BWD-HWA on the floor and wait until it leaked. I might flush the tank of debris.
 
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Master Plumber Mark

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the only way to know for sure would be to take a cutting torch or tin snips and take off the outer liner...
then you have to hack off the styrofoam inner liner that is glued to the tank..or throw in in a bon- fire.
. then after all this work you will have the naked inner tank to look at to see if it actually is imploded or not...

and that is a lot of work .
....if it is imploded, PLEASE TAKE PICTURES... because it is a very, very rare thing
and their are almost no legitimate pictures of that to be found anywhere on the internet....

I have run across 2 blown up water heaters in 40 years
and they are both in my store front window and on my
internet web site to see...

a imploded one is much more rare....

take pictures
 

hj

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It would be almost impossible to create enough vacuum to implode a water heater in the basement,(unless you were on the top of a hill or mountain and the city shut off the water and drained the mains), and unless the jacket was "bonded" to the tank by the insulation, it would NOT be affected by the internal tank imploding.
 

DonL

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That may have been one of those recalled ones. That did not get damaged properly.

Then found at the dump.
 

DonL

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How does something get "damaged properly"?

Removing the ID Tag, and drilling a hole thru it would be proper.

Most of the time it was dumpster divers, They get them. Or even inside workers.

Seen it Montgomery Ward and Sears, When I was in the field. The trash man or workers resale the stuff.

Sometimes the Recalled stuff is not properly destroyed, But big Stores get credit even if the Plate Tag is not removed, And sent for proof. Many times they do not dispose of them properly, TVs are a good example of that.

Some just throw them in a dumpster, And that looks like maybe a BB store compactor did the damage.

Of course that is just my $1 thought. The Price of beer went up.

Happy Holiday everyone.
 
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