Platinum_Overcast
New Member
Hello all-
I've got a 2002 (according to the SN) Bradford White Combination water heater. It's a 75 Gal, 76K BTU input natural gas water heater with an integrated heat exchanger that feeds a radiant in floor heating system. Model number is M2C75T10EN12.
Problem:
I believe that the heat exchanger coil has developed a leak and the DHW is now combined with the radiant heating loop. This seems to be somewhat common on these systems from that era according to a bit of googling. I'm assuming one of the pros here has seen this before?
How I got there:
I decided to check on the expansion tank and see what the air pressure was. First time since buying the house in 2009. Pressure was zero. Pretty sure that's not right. Turned off the main, opened a hot water tap at the utility sink and tried to pressurize the tank with a bike pump to something like 12 psi or so. Wouldn't take any pressure, like the Schrader valve was bad. Poked at the valve, the needle moves fine. OK, assume the expansion tank is dead....
Looked at the pressure on the gauge for the radiant zone, read 8psi. Maybe a little low, but made sense to me...
Closed the tap on the utility sink, opened the main and noticed the pressure gauge on the radiant system swing all the around off the scale on the top side... 60+ psi. Hmm. That doesn't seem right.
Static city water pressure here is 63 psi (I measured it when we built the irrigation system in 2014).
We've also noticed at least one of the hot water taps puts out a bit of discolored water on the first use of the day. It's been doing this for several months at least. Red (rust colored, actually) herring perhaps? Indicative of the tank itself gone bad?
So...
Question 1: Am I right that the heat exchanger coil has been breached in the WH? Or have I missed something?
Question 2: If so, this is obviously bad. Nothing will kill us in the next couple weeks, right? I've read about legionella, etc. but this has probably been happening for quite awhile without our knowledge. It's winter here in Minneapolis and the radiant system is circulating, we're using hot water, etc. Everything is working "fine".
Just want to confirm that I'm thinking along the right lines and it really has gone bad before we start talking about options to replace it. I've been doing quite a bit of reading here and elsewhere and I feel like a plan is coming together, but I'd really appreciate input from the forum on what I'm thinking.
Thanks in advance!
I've got a 2002 (according to the SN) Bradford White Combination water heater. It's a 75 Gal, 76K BTU input natural gas water heater with an integrated heat exchanger that feeds a radiant in floor heating system. Model number is M2C75T10EN12.
Problem:
I believe that the heat exchanger coil has developed a leak and the DHW is now combined with the radiant heating loop. This seems to be somewhat common on these systems from that era according to a bit of googling. I'm assuming one of the pros here has seen this before?
How I got there:
I decided to check on the expansion tank and see what the air pressure was. First time since buying the house in 2009. Pressure was zero. Pretty sure that's not right. Turned off the main, opened a hot water tap at the utility sink and tried to pressurize the tank with a bike pump to something like 12 psi or so. Wouldn't take any pressure, like the Schrader valve was bad. Poked at the valve, the needle moves fine. OK, assume the expansion tank is dead....
Looked at the pressure on the gauge for the radiant zone, read 8psi. Maybe a little low, but made sense to me...
Closed the tap on the utility sink, opened the main and noticed the pressure gauge on the radiant system swing all the around off the scale on the top side... 60+ psi. Hmm. That doesn't seem right.
Static city water pressure here is 63 psi (I measured it when we built the irrigation system in 2014).
We've also noticed at least one of the hot water taps puts out a bit of discolored water on the first use of the day. It's been doing this for several months at least. Red (rust colored, actually) herring perhaps? Indicative of the tank itself gone bad?
So...
Question 1: Am I right that the heat exchanger coil has been breached in the WH? Or have I missed something?
Question 2: If so, this is obviously bad. Nothing will kill us in the next couple weeks, right? I've read about legionella, etc. but this has probably been happening for quite awhile without our knowledge. It's winter here in Minneapolis and the radiant system is circulating, we're using hot water, etc. Everything is working "fine".
Just want to confirm that I'm thinking along the right lines and it really has gone bad before we start talking about options to replace it. I've been doing quite a bit of reading here and elsewhere and I feel like a plan is coming together, but I'd really appreciate input from the forum on what I'm thinking.
Thanks in advance!