Temporarily Bypass Expansion Tank?

[dcallaway]

Hi there. I’m in Texas and we’re clearly unprepared to deal with the insanely cold weather we’ve had the last week. My tankless water heater is on a closed loop system and has an expansion tank. It froze and the ice burst it (ironic for an expansion tank, right?), and today it finally thawed and started gushing water.

I was able to turn off the valve to it so it’s no longer shooting out water. But now I’m wondering if I can temporarily use the hot water heater until a plumber can come out and replace the expansion tank. It could take a week or so, I imagine. The other hot water heater we have for the house has a split in one of the copper lines so it’d be great if we can at least get one going.

 

[Terry]

The expansion tanks were to mainly protect water heater tanks. You have a tankless. I would not worry about it.
We had about 10" of snow in the Seattle area this last weekend. I try to go skiing at least once a week during the Winter here.

Austin Texas in 2019, my last visit there.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[LLigetfa]

If the tank was full of water then it was likely already bad. With a tankless system, there is no significant expansion so the tank should have been empty.

 

[dcallaway]

Thanks, appreciate it! We got about 6 this week, which is the most I’ve ever seen and I’ve been here 20+ years.

The expansion tanks were to mainly protect water heater tanks. You have a tankless. I would not worry about it.
We had about 10" of snow in the Seattle area this last weekend. I try to go skiing at least once a week during the Winter here.

Austin Texas in 2019, my last visit there.