Hello, I'm new here!
I have a quick story about a plumbing mishap that happened to me about three years ago. I have a pretty good idea of what happened technically, but I thought I'd share it with others too.
One day, my wife called me and was quite agitated. She said the toilet tank was rumbling, and when she flushed it, a loud hissing issued forth from within the tank and steam began filling the bathroom. Recognizing hissing steam as quite unusual and probably very dangerous, I told her to get out of there immediately. I then told her to open all the faucets in the house. When she did, they all shot very very hot scalding water and steam, and the whole house was filled with a hot fog-like steam in just a couple of minutes.
I told her to go outside and open the breaker panel and turn off the mains. She did. Afterwards, the chaos was over; the steam was dissipating and after turning the mains back on (but the water heater breaker OFF), she opened windows and the AC fan circulation took care of the steam.
A postmortem revealed that the toilet was damaged: the float valve's housing was made of plastic and it had melted under the intense heat of that steam just enough that it would not operate properly. We had to turn the water off to the toilet. The water heater, when switched back on, would not turn off on its own. I guess the thermostat somehow failed. But isn't there a mechanical fail safe built into water heaters that are designed to dump overheated water if the thermostat fails?
This was a construction-grade water heater. It has since been replaced and we've had no other issues. I was just wondering what some experts thought about all this; what happened and how to avoid something like this in the future.
Thanks for listening to my dramatic plumbing story!
I have a quick story about a plumbing mishap that happened to me about three years ago. I have a pretty good idea of what happened technically, but I thought I'd share it with others too.
One day, my wife called me and was quite agitated. She said the toilet tank was rumbling, and when she flushed it, a loud hissing issued forth from within the tank and steam began filling the bathroom. Recognizing hissing steam as quite unusual and probably very dangerous, I told her to get out of there immediately. I then told her to open all the faucets in the house. When she did, they all shot very very hot scalding water and steam, and the whole house was filled with a hot fog-like steam in just a couple of minutes.
I told her to go outside and open the breaker panel and turn off the mains. She did. Afterwards, the chaos was over; the steam was dissipating and after turning the mains back on (but the water heater breaker OFF), she opened windows and the AC fan circulation took care of the steam.
A postmortem revealed that the toilet was damaged: the float valve's housing was made of plastic and it had melted under the intense heat of that steam just enough that it would not operate properly. We had to turn the water off to the toilet. The water heater, when switched back on, would not turn off on its own. I guess the thermostat somehow failed. But isn't there a mechanical fail safe built into water heaters that are designed to dump overheated water if the thermostat fails?
This was a construction-grade water heater. It has since been replaced and we've had no other issues. I was just wondering what some experts thought about all this; what happened and how to avoid something like this in the future.
Thanks for listening to my dramatic plumbing story!
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