Water Is Seldom A Good Sign

This house has an unusual heating system. There’s no hot water heater as such. The boiler heats water which then gets stored in the bottle. We have never run out of hot water, even with two showers going at once.

There’s water on my basement floor. Water is seldom a good sign.

I suppose the good news is, it’s not coming in from outside. The bad news is, it’s coming from the glass bottle that stores our heated water.

We have an unusual heating system. There’s no hot water heater as such. The boiler heats water which then gets stored in the bottle. We have never run out of hot water, even with two showers going at once.

I called our oil company. Art came and looked. He’s been here before.

It’s safe to say, Art has heating chops. This is the guy you want at 3:00 AM, with no heat. Art probably doesn’t want to hear that, but it’s true.

He popped the top and started to peel away the insulation. The bottle is totally covered with insulation the way a tree is covered with bark. One look and you knew, this is a device that’s not meant to be serviced, only used and replaced.

Art’s verdict – a pin hole somewhere on the bottle. The leak is slow and was probably there for a long time before it began to drip to the floor.

I recommended chewing gum and duct tape. Rejected. I thought they were the universal cure for homeowner problems?

The service manager will be calling soon. Even before the conversation begins, I can safely say, I’m buying a new bottle.

3 thoughts on “Water Is Seldom A Good Sign”

  1. Ouch!!!! We also have one of these “not actually a hot water heater” holding tanks…. Saturday morning I had the enviable experience of using the shop vac to try to recover some of the 30 gallons of water that covered the basement floor…. You are so right. No fixing…Just replacing. Our new tank comes Thursday….$$$$$$ Evi, Danbury

  2. I live in a townhouse condo, when one of us has a disaster with their water heater, not only do we feel it, so do the neighbors on each side of us! Imagine a finished basement?

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