Replacement Water Pressure Relief Valve

[Art-n-Marge]

Finally got to the internet and have time to post.

The Suburban Hot Water relief valve was leaking!!! It is now 7pm and I just finished setting up everything Wednesday night, the night before Thanksgiving.

BAH!!! I rush down to Lowe's (right down the street) and buy a new one. This is an emergency and all they have a long fitting ($12) and a medium fitting ($16). The long one will stick out too far and I won't be able to put the WH cover back on. I go for the shorter length and head back to camp. I turn off the shore water supply or this thing will leak all night and I'm too exhausted and it's too dark and cold to try to replace this and worse yet, I do NOT have a pipe wrench.

Fortunately, we are only 15 miles from the stick house. I'll just have to go back home (Thanksgiving Day) and get the tools and repair it after we're done with Thanksgiving festivities.

Two things to point out. First, keep a pipe wrench in the trailer tool box and second, next time check this before 5pm so if there's a problem like this you can visit an RV store and get the right length for the pressure relief. The one I bought is too long and doesn't provide enough clearance between the door and the relief valve lever and will probably put a hole in the cover if it goes off, but I used this because I needed to get the WH working. I will be buying the shorter one and reinstalling it. RV water relief valves are $24. Not a lot of money but now I have a spare and this fix is now costing me $40 for buying two of these things.

[CamillaMichael]

Art, sorry you had to get jerked around by circumstances...good advice on the relief valve...think I will be going to Camping World soon to pick up a spare relief valve! By the way, aren't these things supposed to "dribble" when the WH internal water pressure is too high? If so, how would you know if there is a problem vs the valve just doing its job? Michael

[HamRad]

Art,
I think Michael has a valid point. I see my HWH relief valve drip a few drops from time to time.
With my tank off I will operate the valve a few times to make sure the thing will operate.
Good luck with finding the correct length.
Dennis

[awaywego]

My valve drips a little if I fill the the water heater and don't leave an air pocket in the top for expansion. The directions say fill the tank before you open the valve so air gets traped in the top of the tank. When you open the valve after it is full all the air won't bleed out and it has room to expand when it heats. I have tried this and it has workrd for me.

[Art-n-Marge]

Hmmm, maybe there wasn't a problem. Nowadays, I drain my tank after every use and have been doing for for over a year now (been out about 10 times since then). Then when I get to the campground, I refill the WH and may not have waited long enough before opening a hot water faucet for this air bubble to form. I basically turn on the city water supply wait a while (do all kinds of other setup stuff), then open a hot water faucet valve to bleed the line.

I may have panicked since the water was falling all over the place and coming out pretty quick (more than a trickle I would say) and since I had never seen this before.... well there you have it.

What you all post makes sense it I didn't wait long enough before opening a valve, because the water coming out was very cold (even though both the propane and the electric element were on), but this could have been the overflow like what's mentioned and I had not waited long enough.

I will be paying more attention to when I turn on the water heater and waiting for the 10 gal WH to fill PRIOR then turning on the heat. It seems to me that I shouldn't worry about bleeding the hot water line until the water is hot.

I am glad that I don't store the WH with water any more and flush it out real good, too. The water quality has definitely improved a lot for us. Now I'll have to find that new procedure to get it refilled and turned on right, even if I have to visit the "manual".

Thanks for the hints!

The best one I've picked up on, is DON'T set up the day before a major holiday to prevent panic and give myself time to think about things BEFORE spending unnecessary money! (I destroyed the old relief valve when I removed it so I couldn't even reuse it to test it per your input. It would have been great to test it) Doing this when it was late in the day, dark, cold and I was too tired to think, was NOT a good idea.

[wersqu]

I am impressed that it only took two trips to the hardware store for a plumbing project. Keep up the good work.