citydweller3033
New Member
I got my new water heater today. Terry was a big help in getting me to understand the strange way that my old one was set up.
Between the removal of the old unit, and the installation of the new unit, I went into the W.H. closet to clean up the floor and look around. The electrical panel is on the wall to the left of the water heater.
I have never had a problem with the electrical in this apartment. The building was built in 1960. It appears to be all original electrical (the meters are downstairs in the laundry room, and the electrical infrastructure with the meters looks original, but there are smart meters for every unit.). I have one outlet that gets mildly warm after running an A/C or space heater after an hour or more... it does not appear to be problematic. It never gets hot to touch.
I moved into this apartment in summer 2019. I gave everything a good visual look around including inside the utility closet. Also, everything was freshly painted, including inside the W.H. closet, before I moved in.
So this problem began sometime between July 2019 and now, and was just discovered today.
The old gas water heater (17 years old) was becoming noisier and was starting to look and act bad (burner issues, sediment buildup, long heat cycles) so as it aged, it could have been affecting the indoor environment (moisture, etc.) of this room. This is my first hunch that maybe the room was starting to have excessive humidity and condensation within the last year. I first reported some problems with the water heater in early 2020 but it took a year for it to get bad enough for me to push the landlord to get it replaced.
The horizontal pipe you see directly above the right side of the electrical panel, is a mystery drain pipe. My old water heater's TPR valve was piped upward and then horizontally into a connection into that pipe. We believe it is goes to some type of vertical, shared DWV for the three-story building. The maintenance tech, who has worked in this building for years, says he has never figured out where it leads or what it connects to. My water heater apparently was one of the oldest in the building and he said, "I've only ever seen two water heaters connected to that thing." Could it be dripping water into the electrical panel? I guess it is possible, unknown, but I would think it is unlikely. If it is attached to a roof vent, I suppose water could get into the pipe that way, but we have not had much rain or snow this year.
I showed the tech the problem. He said: "The panels in these apartments are ancient." No other comment. (He is not the one to accept work requests, he just does the work after it is assigned to him. I have to enter it into their online system or call it in.)
Here are 2 photos. Right now what I plan to do is save these photos, then go look at the panel in 2-3 weeks, and see if there is any new additional rust or if it is the same. If it is the same, then maybe the problem was the humidity produced by the old (now gone) water heater. If it worsens, we know we have an active leak or increasing problem.
Unless you think I should call it in sooner! Let me know your advice.
Rust coming down from center vertical.
Location of (presumably) DWV pipe, above the breaker box. Sorry this isn't a good angle of the photo. The pipe is actually 12" to 18" above the top right screw which I circled in yellow in the photo above.
Thank you!
Between the removal of the old unit, and the installation of the new unit, I went into the W.H. closet to clean up the floor and look around. The electrical panel is on the wall to the left of the water heater.
I have never had a problem with the electrical in this apartment. The building was built in 1960. It appears to be all original electrical (the meters are downstairs in the laundry room, and the electrical infrastructure with the meters looks original, but there are smart meters for every unit.). I have one outlet that gets mildly warm after running an A/C or space heater after an hour or more... it does not appear to be problematic. It never gets hot to touch.
I moved into this apartment in summer 2019. I gave everything a good visual look around including inside the utility closet. Also, everything was freshly painted, including inside the W.H. closet, before I moved in.
So this problem began sometime between July 2019 and now, and was just discovered today.
The old gas water heater (17 years old) was becoming noisier and was starting to look and act bad (burner issues, sediment buildup, long heat cycles) so as it aged, it could have been affecting the indoor environment (moisture, etc.) of this room. This is my first hunch that maybe the room was starting to have excessive humidity and condensation within the last year. I first reported some problems with the water heater in early 2020 but it took a year for it to get bad enough for me to push the landlord to get it replaced.
The horizontal pipe you see directly above the right side of the electrical panel, is a mystery drain pipe. My old water heater's TPR valve was piped upward and then horizontally into a connection into that pipe. We believe it is goes to some type of vertical, shared DWV for the three-story building. The maintenance tech, who has worked in this building for years, says he has never figured out where it leads or what it connects to. My water heater apparently was one of the oldest in the building and he said, "I've only ever seen two water heaters connected to that thing." Could it be dripping water into the electrical panel? I guess it is possible, unknown, but I would think it is unlikely. If it is attached to a roof vent, I suppose water could get into the pipe that way, but we have not had much rain or snow this year.
I showed the tech the problem. He said: "The panels in these apartments are ancient." No other comment. (He is not the one to accept work requests, he just does the work after it is assigned to him. I have to enter it into their online system or call it in.)
Here are 2 photos. Right now what I plan to do is save these photos, then go look at the panel in 2-3 weeks, and see if there is any new additional rust or if it is the same. If it is the same, then maybe the problem was the humidity produced by the old (now gone) water heater. If it worsens, we know we have an active leak or increasing problem.
Unless you think I should call it in sooner! Let me know your advice.
Rust coming down from center vertical.
Location of (presumably) DWV pipe, above the breaker box. Sorry this isn't a good angle of the photo. The pipe is actually 12" to 18" above the top right screw which I circled in yellow in the photo above.
Thank you!
