HWH draining question for amatuer

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hevykevy420

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I recently had to drain my upstairs HWH for service. I closed the cold input to the HWH, turned on a nearby upstairs hot faucet, and began to drain the tank.

Strange thing...water was hot coming out of the tank even though the HWH was NOT functioning properly (no HW at all) and was turned off for quite some time (water should have been cold). Also, water never seemed to stop draining until I shut off the cold supply to the DOWNSTAIRS HWH.

I'm far from a expert, but would this indicate that the cold water supply valve for the upstairs unit needs to be replaced?

I could hear water running through the downstairs HWH while this was happening before I shut off the downstairs HWH valve. Are my HWHs connected in series? This wouldn't make sense to me as the HWH are on different floors, but there is a dedicated return line with a recirc pumping to the upstairs HWH, and when the recirc pump is running it speeds HW delivery time to the first floor kitchen.

The house is quite large 4,000 sq. ft. with long plumbing runs. I'm just trying to figure out how this system is plumbed :eek:
 
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You could check to see if they a pipe in series by checking the cold feed to the second floor heater and see if it gets hot when running hot water in a second floor fixture.

John
 
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