With winters knocking at the doors, it is important that we have our water heaters working. Water heaters have come to the human generation as a bliss. Can you imagine bathing in cold water on a winter morning? Can you imagine using your cooking gas or oven to boil water, carry it to the bathroom and then take bath? No right? Water heaters are easy to operate and work really fast. But what happens when it suddenly stops working? Let us see what are the reasons that it doesn’t work and what can be done in such cases.
What to do if your water heater stops working:
Before we start discussing about the various water heater problems and their solutions, you need to understand that water heaters can be of two kinds. One is a gas water heater and the other one is an electric water heater. We will discuss about each of these types.
Problems and solutions:
You can have various problems in a gas water heater or an electric water heater.
If your water is not getting heated at all: In such a case, for a gas heater, you need to check if the gas is on inside the heater. For this, switch everything off, remove the bottom portion and see if a small flame at the end of the gas tube is lit. If it isn’t lit, you got to relight it. Check if there is any gas leakage. In case if your novice knowledge doesn’t work, you can take help from the plumber or the gas heater company.
For an electric water heater, you need to check whether the electricity connection is sound. Also try resetting the water heater. If it still doesn’t work, you can open and see if there is water accumulated in any of the compartments. If it still doesn’t work, you can call a repair person.
If water is not hot enough: There can arise situations when you don’t get enough hot water. For gas water heaters, you can go to the thermostat settings and check if you can increase the temperature of the water. This way you can get more heated water. You can check if the pilot light stays lit. If you observe that it’s going out, you can try relighting it. Still if you can’t, take help of the plumber.
For an electric water heater, check for the heating element. At times, when the heating element is old and weary, the water doesn’t get as hot as it should. Replacement of the heating element might give you enough hot water.
Try to clean up the parts of the water heater. This at times avoids a lot of problems in a heater. Regular cleaning and maintenance of the heater would keep It working for years. Gas heaters and electric heaters have their own pros and cons. Whenever you plan to get a water heater, you can always check for the problems and advantages each of them has and then go for the best.
