Hi,
I just replaced my water heater. I had a line going into the bottom of the tank which I had to cut. It’s constantly driping. I thought it was just water left in the line but it doesn’t appear to be stopping. Anybody know where it comes from? I did have something on my outdoor AC unit, some kind of recycle thingy, heat recovery maybe but I disconnected all that when I had the AC replaced. It may have something to do with that. I don’t want to cap it off and have it back up somewhere. Anyhow, all help appreciatred,
Mike
Replies
That would appear to be a recirculating line. The odd thing is that water is not gushing out of it (assuming that the hot water is turned on).
Thanks, How does the recirc
Thanks,
How does the recirc thing play out? What's it recircing? Drips are not hot.
Mike
Basically, the recirc line would return hot water from the far end of the hot water line. Sometimes it's just a "gravity" arrangement with no pump, but usually there's a small pump, either at the heater or at the far end, under a bathroom sink, eg. The pump operates either on a timer or a push-button switch, and/or a thermostat.
I woudn't think that the pump would be able to "hold back" water flow when not running, but if there is a pump, and it is indeed blocking the water flow, you don't want it to suddenly come on.
Thanks,
I think I solved it. There's a "T" with a shut off that comes off the supply line . I shut off the shut off and now the drip has stopped. Do you know what it is? I know I don't have a recirc pump.
Thanks again.
Mike
Coming off the supply line, it does kind of sound like it could be the heat recovery thingie on the AC unit. But I'm presuming that the pipes to that (whatever it was) were cut when the AC was changed out, so I don't see how there could still be a "circuit".
I suppose it's also possible that it's a heat recovery feed from your old AC unit (though I've never heard of such a lashup in a residential system). Would work the same way as the recirc system, basically, only the water would be fed from a cold water line somewhere.
I do believe that you need to figure out where the line comes from. You never should have cut it without knowing what it was, and you should have kept a longer stub at the wall to make capping (or reconnecting) easier.
There was no way to leave a bigger stub, (it does pull out a bit further, enough to cap or reconnect) the drain was completely blocked with sediment so I had to cut before the shut off otherwise if it start to drain I wouldn't be able to shut it off. I found this and it's exactlly the system I had but instead of connecting to the hot side they just tied into the dain line.