Your hot water heater is one of the most underrated appliances in your home. It’s out of sight and out of mind in your basement, and you take full advantage of it every day without a second thought. That is, until something goes wrong and you can’t get the hot water you need.
No one wants to step into a morning shower that’s freezing or shave with ice cold water. It’s important to pay attention to signs that your water heating is failing, and when you notice them, don’t wait to call for hot water heater repair in Grand Rapids, MN.
Let’s take a look at six of the most common signs of an impending water heater failure and what they might be telling you about the status of this critical appliance:
- Slow to heat: If you turn on the hot water in your shower, walk away and come back in a few minutes, only to find it’s just getting warmed up, you’ve got a developing issue on your hands. Water heaters that are slow to heat are majorly inefficient and are often followed closely by a failure to heat altogether.
- Loud noises: Hear a rattling or clanging when you turn the hot water on? These aren’t good noises. Your water heater shouldn’t need to “kick on.” It should function silently. Have a plumbing expert out to get to the bottom of strange noises—it could be something like loose pipes or a dangerously rocking heater.
- No heat: If your water heater appears functional, but isn’t producing any hot water, you’ve likely got a pilot light problem. No heat means no hot water! This is a simple fix, but one that requires an expert’s touch for safety reasons. Have your faulty pilot light replaced or cleaned to restore function to your heater.
- Dirty water: Dirty water isn’t something anyone wants to see coming out of their faucets or showerheads. If gross water is specific only to your hot water, it might be an issue with sediment in your tank. Sediment can be a real problem for older water heaters and needs to be cleaned out to protect the integrity of the tank.
- Intermittent hot water: There’s nothing quite so bad as taking a hot shower and suddenly getting a blast of cold water mixed in. If this happens to you, don’t waste time in calling for hot water heater repairs. The last thing you need is a cold-water wake-up call!
- Hot water runs out fast: Only getting a few precious minutes before your water goes from hot to lukewarm? There may be a problem with your tank’s ability to heat at full capacity. Something like this can necessitate complex water heater repair in Grand Rapids, MN.
Pay close attention to the day-to-day function of your water heater and take note of any issues corresponding to the above problems. The sooner you observe and act on them, the less likely you’ll have to worry about a complete water heater failure in the near future.