Is Plumber trying to take Scam me?

[adeolafadeyibi]

I just had my water heater serviced because one of the baseboards was making a noise. The plumber fixed it by letting the excess air out of the heater and everything was fine.

He then said I needed some kind of valve to stop the water from the water heater from going back into the line of the drinking water should there ever be a case where the water pressure from the city is low at which point my water heater water would go into the drinking line and possibly poison me and the other tenants in the building.

Is this a real possibly and necessary work? or is he trying to scare me into shelling out big bucks?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Matt30]

If you do not have a backflow preventer, it would be in your best interest to have one installed.

 

[Mr_David]

When someone is talking about a water heater I generally think they are talking about a water heater that heats water for bathing and washing.
But it seems that some refer to a WH as a system that heats there living space which is a closed system that has a supply of water only to make up for any small amounts of loss to the system.

If this is what you are referring to then yes you should have some sort of back flow valve to prevent the space heating system water from re-entering your domestic water system. It's never a good idea to even drink the water from a hot side of a domestic system either. The heat destroys the chlorine which makes the water safe to drink.

 

[Chris]

I didn't know that about the hot side. Good info!

 

[phishfood]

Heat does a lot of things. Generally speaking, hot water is more corrosive than cold water.