can you weld a pinhole in a water tank?

Late last night I did indeed shut all the water to the house off and drained the line with the stuck valve in it, and I was able to disassemble the valve and get it unstuck. Now it's working again, and we have hot water.

No point. The bronze braze is going to hold, it's solid as a rock.

I'm going to replace this tank pretty quick, and now that I have the shutoff valve working and understand the piping I now realize the tanks are in parallel and not in series so if I get another leak short-term I can just shut this one down and drain it into the floor drain and switch over to the electric hot water heater.

GWE

Sorry to remind you but there are several rules of plumbing:

#1) Never work on plumbing when the stores are closed. #2) Never work on plumbing when SWMBO is planning a party. (or your teenagers are all home at the same time) #3) Violation of Rule #1 and Rule #2 on the same day is NOT in your best interests #4) Escape from Rule #3 requires substantial bribery to whomever.

Heh heh. I got my pick of a friend's w> OK, the copper patch didn't sweat on fully. I took it off, wirebrushed

In the beginning when I thought this tank held heating water, I had the heat shut off. Seattle is in the middle of a cold snap, gets down to the high teens at night now. Our house is full of teenagers as it is every other weekend, it's a 3-day holiday weekend, and today (Sunday) I have to cook a large turkey dinner for my father-in-law's 70th birthday. About the worst imaginable scenario for having your home heating and hot water system disabled.

We recently had a one-day gas welding/brazing/soldering class in which our own Ernie Leimkuhler taught about 20 students the basics. If I hadn't taken that class I would have never had a prayer of fixing this leak. I wish we could clone Ernie and put one of him in every metropolitan area, he's an awesome welding resource.

GWE

RoyJ wrote:

But old Murphy dictated that plumbing (and electrical) problems ONLY happen when #1 and #2 are true.

Water heater let go Christmas eve (Thursday) afternoon managed to find a plumbing supply still open who had what I needed in stock so I was able to replace it.

Furnace blower motor let go a year or two later, coldest night of the year, and you guessed it - holiday weekend. I managed to find a used motor I could cobble in to keep the heat on 'till I could get the right motor.

Last feb we went to friend's cottage - to find the main breaker sizzling on Friday night. No replacement breaker available, so we went looking for a new panel Sat morning and mamaged to find one we could make fit - changed the panel in the dark and in the cold, with a storm outside and with the panel 'live. Lots of expansion room now as the new panel has almost twice as many breaker slots than the original (same overal capacity)

We're not gonna talk about the christmas my parents were hosting the entire extended family, and about an hour before everyone was due to arrive, the drain line out to the septic tank blocked up.

Grant, at least you go the floor drain working!

Ain't home ownership grand.

Jim

Or the Christmas eve that the oven element shorted from the inner resistance wire to the outer, grounded casing and burned half way around before SWMBO got hold of me and I got her to pull the stove away from the wall and pull the plug. Fortunately I had access to another stove. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Happily, the company (Amtrol) realized that there was no way this tank should be failing, and is replacing the $1200 tank under warranty. I'm off to pick it up now. This is an extremely positive development. When I get the old one out I'll cut it open and report on a post mortem.

NOTE: my original posting was incorrect, this tank does not store heating water, only potable water; the potable water in the tank is heated via a heat exchanger.

Grant Erw> >

Did Amtrol acknowledge other similar failures with that specific tank? You'd think they'd like to disect it to pinpoint (no pun intended) why it failed.

Snarl

I didn't talk to Amtrol, our heating contractor did, so I can't answer that question.

GWE

Just a quick heads-up to consider, Grant...

Before you start cutting the beast open, make *SURE* (in writing, if possible) that Amtrol *DOESN'T* want it back so they can do a post-mortem on it themselves. Otherwise, you may find yourself getting billed for the new one because their procedures weren't followed, or some similar trumped-up excuse.

With the "Find somebody else to take the blame/pick up the tab" society we've got today, I'd be at least somewhat surprised if they didn't want the old one back for inspection/testing.

I specifically talked to the guy at the commercial plumbing supply about this, and he had me bring in the actual nameplate from the tank, they do NOT want the old tank back. They don't much care about QC problems from 11 years ago, but they don't want someone else claiming a new tank off this serial number either, so the actual physical plate goes back to the factory, and no replacement gets issued without that actual plate. Strange system, but effective.

GWE

Turns out my Dad (in Poulsbo) has a radiant heating system with Amtrol componants also, just curious what you find out. Thanks.

Snarl

I had a Sears water heater that leaked under warranty. They had me bring in the date-of-manufacture sticker from the tank and gave me a new one (tank, not sticker). They did not want the tank, they didn't even want to *see* it. Just bring in the sticker, get a new tank. Seemed to me to be an opportunity for fraud (bring in the sticker from a good tank and get a new one).

They put a sticker on the new tank that had the same date as the original tank.

Bob

replying to Robert Swinney, John Duffy wrote: I have 2 cracks on the top of a well water tank near s small red cap can i solder them

replying to Robert Swinney, John Duffy wrote: I have 2 cracks on the top of a well water tank near s small red cap can i solder them