faucetman8861
It is not normal for a hot water heater to leak. There are 2 common problems that you may be having. One, you could actually have a leak in the tank usually caused by the tank rusting through. Remember that most of the time what you see is a shell which is just a cover over the actual tank so it can easily look new or good and still be damaged. Solution: replace the whole unit.
The second possibility is that your temperature control blow off valve has gone off because of a spike in temperature. This is a good thing because otherwise the tank could have exploded. This usually happens when you have a bad heating element, if the tank is elctric, and has caused a temporary overheating problem. Solution locate the offending element and change it. The other cause, especially if it is a gas fired unit, is a bad thermostat causing the overheating and the blow down. In that case the thermostat would need to be replaced.
Regardless you need the situation fixed before it does more damage.
