Water heater repair
& maintenance

Repair or replace — the diagnosis decides

A water heater that has stopped producing hot water has usually failed at one component, not as a unit. An element, a thermostat, a thermocouple, a gas valve, a pressure relief valve or a dip tube are all repairs, and a tank with years left in it does not need to go to the kerb because one part died.

What is not repairable is a tank that has failed at the shell. Once the glass lining is gone and the steel is weeping, no fitting fixes that, and we will tell you straight rather than sell you a repair that buys three weeks. That is when the conversation moves to a new installation.

What we troubleshoot

• No hot water at all, on gas or electric
• Hot water that runs out far faster than it used to
• Water that is scalding, or never gets properly hot
• A pilot or burner that will not stay lit
• Rumbling, popping or kettling from the tank
• Discoloured or metallic-smelling hot water
• A relief valve that keeps discharging
• Leaks at the inlet, outlet, drain valve or relief line
• Tankless units throwing fault codes

Sediment is the usual culprit

South Florida water leaves mineral scale, and scale settles. On a gas tank it forms an insulating crust across the bottom, so the burner has to fire through it — that is the rumbling, and it is also why the unit costs more to run every year. On an electric tank it buries the lower element and burns it out.

A detailed sediment flush is the single highest-value piece of maintenance on a storage tank. Done on an interval it protects the elements, keeps the recovery rate up, and adds years to the tank. Left undone long enough, it is why the tank fails early.

The anode rod nobody checks

Every glass-lined tank contains a sacrificial anode rod whose entire job is to corrode so the tank does not. It is consumable. When it is gone, the tank becomes the anode — and that is the failure that ends in a replacement. Checking and replacing it is a modest job that pushes the replacement years out.

Maintenance, not just repair

On a schedule, a service visit covers a flush, an anode check, relief valve testing, thermostat calibration, connection and venting inspection, and — on a tankless unit — a descale. It is the difference between planning a replacement and discovering one.