Home Improvement → Low water pressure

The dip tube is a plastic tube inside the water heater. It takes the cold water from the inlet down to the bottom of the water heater. As you recall from basic science, heat rises. So the hot water that exits your water heater leaves through the top. You don't want to be diluting the already-heated water with cold water. Thus the dip tube. It takes the cold water that needs heating down to the lower part of the heater where the heat source (gas burner, for example) is located.

Depending on the age of your water heater, it might be feasible to replace the tube. But if the tank is already past its prime life expectancy, then just replacing the water heater is probably a better choice.

A great place to get help and parts is »waterheaterresuce.com

A video of this thread...
»www.ronhazelton.com/tips ··· lacement

To add to Goofy's post... For a period of time, water heater manufacturers were using an inappropriate material for their dip tubes, which resulted in them failing prematurely.

Hmm...interesting.
Would the dip tube be a reason for hot water not lasting as long as it used to?

Yes.

Building on Bob's brief reply...

Yes, because if the dip tube broke off say right at the top of the inlet, cold water immediately mixes with the hot water and then exits the water heater. If it's the first use after the heater has reached it's max temperature, you'll have hot water for a brief period until enough cold water has mixed lowering the temperature of the top portion of the water heater. The water at the bottom of the tank never gets properly mixed with the cold incoming water until the water usage stops and the water settles.

If indeed it is the diptube, you can buy replacement tubes at supply houses locally or online. They aren't that expensive. But it can be a real PITA to get the supply nipple off to replace the tube due to years of corrosion. And if you do get it off, it may not go back on very well.

The years where dip tubes were really an issue were the 90s ending up in a class action lawsuit and settlement that ended IIRC in 2000 or 2001. It's not inconceivable you could have a water heater from that vintage, although if you do I'd plan on replacing it rather than repairing it...you're already on borrowed time statistically speaking.

Another "common" error that a DIYer can make when replacing a dip tube is shooting your own foot when soldering a connection on top of the newly replaced tube. If you heat an area with the torch too close to the new plastic, you can damage the new tube with radiant heat.

Hate to say it onebadmofo , but I think a new heater is your likely best investment after you verify the age of the heater.

You also need a high enough ceiling to get the new dip tube into the tank!

Well....isn't that just peachy.

I couldn't find a year it was made. The yellow energy sticker has a year of 1994 on it. But I don't think that is something I can go by.

A dip tube problem would not match the symptoms you described (hearing water running when there was no known consumer of water in use, and I think you sorta implied that the flame does not go off when you have the valve open).

Isn't that a different water heater thread?

Yep think the post two above might belong to »New gas water heater but water lukewarm-HELP!

You are right.... This is the low water pressure thread.

Yeah dude, you had me confused for a second there.

I see a new water heater in your future.

I'm already thinking tankless.

Yep, drove me crazy around here. All the aerators clogged with what looked like a white fine gravel. Years later a dishwasher had problems and had to taken apart because of it. I suspect I will one day run into something around here that still has that crap in it.

Edit: The first symptom was running out of hot water too early.Then all the faucets got clogged up. Put in a new heater.

I'm looking at home depot for a tankless water heater. But I'm not sure what would be a good replacement. W/H I have now is:

- 50 Gal
-240 Volts

I'm not sure what else I would need to know in order to replace it with a proper tankless.

You are not going to find an electric tank less heater. The instantaneous current consumption is astronomical.

If you have NG or Propane then it may be an option.

The standby losses are a well insulated electric tank are minor since there is no flue.

/tom

Unless gas tankless is not really an option. Think tankless also have some installation requirements like they need to be placed on outside wall for proper venting. Not sure about that however.

Even tankless isn't that great. I ended up having to add a 50 gallon tank as storage to the tankless system to handle peak demand.

What would you consider peak demand?
cause it's only me and my wife that live here. We have a dish washer that's used once a week. And a Washing machine that's used once a week as well.

It all depends on the volume of hot water you use. That's affected by how much water the faucets, shower heads, etc. use aka gpm or gallons per minute. A shower head can use anywhere between 1.5 to 5.5 gpm's. If you have 2 showers going with 1.5's you're only using 3 gpm's but if you have 2 showers going with 5.5 gpm heads your using 11 gpm's! Normally a tankless will have a gpm rating. You might pick a lower rated gpm unit since there is only 2 of you but if you sell the house the next owners might have kids so they need to install a water heater as a storage tank to augment the tankless system. It's hard to say without a complete picture.

You don't happen to have a water tank on your roof, do you?

So I'm looking at this and it seems like it would work for me. But what do I know.
»www.homedepot.com/webapp ··· WidgetID

Did you look at the specs on that unit? It shows the gpm flow based on the unheated water temp. If your water is 40 degrees for example and you want 110 degree shower that's an increase/rise of 70 degrees so that unit can only sustain 1.59 gpm's at that rate. It means you need a low flow water saver shower head and nothing else can be running to get the proper water temp. That will vary based on the water temp so in the Summer you'll be much better off but in the Winter you'll peak it out easy.

You realize 18Kw is 75A at 240 volts and will barely produce enough hot water for one shower if your incoming water is already pretty warm.

By way of comparison tank type water heaters are typically 3800 or 5500 watts.

/tom

If you have the power to feed it:
Amperage (amps) 75 A

Your old water heater was probably wired for 30-40 amps.

Short answer: No it won't work.

It requires a 75 Amp 240 Volt supply, which requires pretty hefty wires, depending on the distance from your electric panel. Not to mention you may not have a big enough drop. And in the winter will only provide 1.6 gal/minute of hot water.