Hello All.
Had to get a new hot water heater today as my old one started leaking after 9 years. I replaced it with the exact same model (40 gallon Rheem low boy, natural gas, normal venting) and finished installing it a couple of hours ago.
When I disconnected the vent from the old one, I noticed a lot of debris in the horizontal duct leading to my chimney. I do not have a chimney liner so it vents direct into the 1920's masonry chimney. I cleaned it out the best I could and will call a chimney guy tomorrow and most likely get a liner installed and finally change the configuration of the vent pipes (my natural gas boiler vent enters the chimney above the hot water heater vent and I was told that is a no-no as but never got around to getting it modified).
My question is that the vent pipe for the new hot water heater is extremely hot, like very hot...like it sizzles when I touch a wet rag to it. It read 280 degrees in one section on my infrared temperature gun. It is a single wall vent pipe, and I do not make a habit of touching them regularly to get a good comparison, but still seems way hotter than it should be.
My CO2 detector is about 6 feet away and has not gone off yet so that is good news. My question is should the vent pipe get that hot? Maybe because it is heating a full tank of cold water?
Had to get a new hot water heater today as my old one started leaking after 9 years. I replaced it with the exact same model (40 gallon Rheem low boy, natural gas, normal venting) and finished installing it a couple of hours ago.
When I disconnected the vent from the old one, I noticed a lot of debris in the horizontal duct leading to my chimney. I do not have a chimney liner so it vents direct into the 1920's masonry chimney. I cleaned it out the best I could and will call a chimney guy tomorrow and most likely get a liner installed and finally change the configuration of the vent pipes (my natural gas boiler vent enters the chimney above the hot water heater vent and I was told that is a no-no as but never got around to getting it modified).
My question is that the vent pipe for the new hot water heater is extremely hot, like very hot...like it sizzles when I touch a wet rag to it. It read 280 degrees in one section on my infrared temperature gun. It is a single wall vent pipe, and I do not make a habit of touching them regularly to get a good comparison, but still seems way hotter than it should be.
My CO2 detector is about 6 feet away and has not gone off yet so that is good news. My question is should the vent pipe get that hot? Maybe because it is heating a full tank of cold water?