Hi guys. I'm new to the forum so go easy on me. I have a hydronic boiler furnace with an Amtrol Boilermate WHS60. The whole system was working great until the other day my wife noticed water on the floor. I investigated and eventually found the top area of the water heater tank was full of water. I sopped it up and noticed a spray from the top. I immediately shut off its power switch and the water supply to the tank.
Unfortunately this shuts water off to all our showers/baths since they are mixing faucets. So I did hesitantly turn it back on to let the kids take showers, then shut it back off. In about 24 hours, the spray had gotten worse - I imagine heat cycling didn't help.
After looking some stuff up online I thought it might be the top flange gasket (common point of failure) but if you look at this photo it appears to be the actual metal weld has a pinhole in it. That's where the water is shooting out.
Do you think this is warranty eligible? To me it looks like a bad weld rather than normal corrosion, but I'm no welder. We do have hard water, but the softener is prior to the water heater and it works really well. I do see that Amtrol's website limits the warranty to the original owner - we purchased the home with the unit here. So I'm probably out of luck but thought I'd ask.
The tag on the unit says 11/03/2000. I don't know when the water heater unit was installed.
I suppose I'm looking at a $1,500-3,000 unit - and I'm guessing probably that much again in labor. Money I don't really have. If you were going to replace this, would you do it yourself?
I'm reasonably handy and have done many plumbing repairs and I understand how this system works. However, I have never sweated copper pipe so that's my main hesitation, really. But any advice about pitfalls is appreciated.
Unfortunately this shuts water off to all our showers/baths since they are mixing faucets. So I did hesitantly turn it back on to let the kids take showers, then shut it back off. In about 24 hours, the spray had gotten worse - I imagine heat cycling didn't help.
After looking some stuff up online I thought it might be the top flange gasket (common point of failure) but if you look at this photo it appears to be the actual metal weld has a pinhole in it. That's where the water is shooting out.
Do you think this is warranty eligible? To me it looks like a bad weld rather than normal corrosion, but I'm no welder. We do have hard water, but the softener is prior to the water heater and it works really well. I do see that Amtrol's website limits the warranty to the original owner - we purchased the home with the unit here. So I'm probably out of luck but thought I'd ask.
The tag on the unit says 11/03/2000. I don't know when the water heater unit was installed.
I suppose I'm looking at a $1,500-3,000 unit - and I'm guessing probably that much again in labor. Money I don't really have. If you were going to replace this, would you do it yourself?
I'm reasonably handy and have done many plumbing repairs and I understand how this system works. However, I have never sweated copper pipe so that's my main hesitation, really. But any advice about pitfalls is appreciated.
