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Originally Posted by drjjj
Traveling Northern New Mexico. Currently in Chama. Woke up this morning to find the carpet runner in the kitchen wet, more so at the end next to the water heater. Water heater is working fine, no obvious leaks on the outside. Our unit (3400RL, 2007) has an L-shaped island. There is an access panel on both sides of the hot water heater. When I removed the access panels I can see a small amount of moisture on the floor, but no obvious leaks. The kitchen side access is where the plumbing is, and I could not feel or see any leaks. So far this morning no more leaking. It did get down to 32 last night, and I did not run the furnace as we have two ceramic space heaters. Is it possible that enough condensation occurred overnight to cause this? There is no obvious condensation on the water heater or leaking that I can see. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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Ours has the same layout and I had water on our carpet that I eventually traced to the hot water heater tank having cracked. Apparently it had started with a small one and really gotten bad after we drove around Chicago. I had to remove the vacuum (four screws, not hard) and use a flashlight to see the rear of the heater and floor to find it though. There's a small plastic door on the outside of the L on ours that is barely large enough to get my hand in, and didn't give a good enough view. After replacing the unit, I had a terrible time getting the pipe fittings sealed - finally had to use some epoxy plumber's putty.
One thing you need to look carefully at is that our tank was supported by a piece of composite board held up on the outside edges by two 1" x 1" sticks. The crack had leaked onto it while getting worse and worse, and of course the composite had deteriorated to the point where it had sagged to the sub floor. This had also helped make the crack worse over time as well. I put some shims underneath the middle part when installing the new heater so it's fully supported now.
If yours is like our '10 3665RE and you need to replace the heater, you'll have to cut a hole in the kitchen side wall of that L to access the gas line. I tried every way I could to not do this, but it's the only way to be able to pull it back (copper tube, and stiff) get the old one out, then push it back to the hole it goes through on the new one. Guess they built the thing around the heater! Anyway, you just need a box cutter as the paneling is very thin. Be careful as there are a couple of wires behind it besides the gas line. I built and attached a frame out of stained oak molding, glued it to the scrap and then mounted it back with some small screws in each corner. Isn't hardly noticeable now, but can be removed easily if someone (hopefully not me!) ever has to get in there again.