What to Do If Your Water Heater is Leaking

As a homeowner, one of the scariest signs of trouble is the accumulation of water near the bottom of your water heater. This is often a sign that your water heater has sprung a leak somewhere, and if you don’t resolve the issue quickly, the issue could get worse, causing flooding and heavy damage to your home. What this means is that you should immediately reach out to a San Fernando Valley plumber and schedule a repair or replacement service, but in the meantime you’ll need to take action to protect your home from losses. Here are a few things you can do.

Find the Leak Cause

It’s usually pretty easy to find where your water heater is leaking because it most-often comes from one of two places: around the drain valve, and somewhere around the water heater’s tank. Check the drain valve first since it’s actually the easiest issue to resolve: if you notice water dripping out from around where the valve itself meets with the tank, then call a plumber and inform them you need the drain valve replaced on your water heater. This is actually a fairly inexpensive and quick repair, so really it’s a “best-case” scenario.

Leaks can also occur within the tank itself, and that’s much more difficult to overcome. Tank leaks are much harder to detect, and can be somewhat deceiving: how big is the leak? Is it where the water appears to be? These are all questions that are difficult to answer. Unfortunately, fixing a leaky tank isn’t always easy, and you’re actually usually better off just outright replacing your water heater completely since leaks are usually a sign that your heater has aged beyond its useful service life. After a while, minerals, sediment, and other debris have built up at the bottom of the tank, causing corrosion in the tank’s inner lining.

Shut Off Your Tank

Once you contact your plumber and schedule a service appointment, the next thing you should consider doing is draining your tank to prevent water from leaking out. Simply connect a hose to your drain valve (they usually have threads around the nozzle) and then run it out towards your gutter or a storm drain. Open the valve slowly, making sure any leaks don’t get larger. You may also want to consider wrapping the nozzle in an absorbent towel and placing a bowl or bucket beneath it to catch any leaked water.