Water Heater Leaking

[Karl-Heinz Bollmann]

We have an water heater in an interior closet. It has a drain pan but because it’s in an interior closet, a drain line to the outside was not required. We recently had a leak in it that overflowed the pan onto our carpet. We are considering installing a leak sensor that would shut off the valve which would prevent losing more than the water in the tank. We would still have the problem of overflowing the pan as it would not hold 50 gallons or whatever the tank holds. Are there any type of pellets that we can put in the pan that would dissolve and seal the water heater upon water accumulating in the pan? Also, would you have a suggestion on how to plumb the pan drain line if we don’t have access to an outside wall? For instance, can we go up through the ceiling and if so, how do we force the water to flow up?

[SelgasParticipant]

To drain the flood tray – it MUST flow downhill to a safe place to discharge any water – usually at a gulley trap or similar. A “Safe” tray should never be installed without some means of any water collected being able to free drain otherwise the whole purpose of having the tray is defeated.

A safe tray is connected to a waste pipe that runs to either a drain point or as I have said a gully trap. To push the any water uphill you would have to apply adequate pressure to achieve the result such a pump – this method of getting rid of any collected water is not recommended and in fact is not even legal here.

[73TorinoParticipant]

The pan wasn’t piped? That’s like building a car but not running a fuel line because of obstructions in the way. Sorry, but whoever plumbed your house should know better. I’m not sure where you live, but here that just wouldn’t fly. The inspector would turn that down without hesitation.

Without seeing your setup I can’t say what the best option would be, but somehow that pan needs to get piped. It might involve opening up some walls to get the piping into a basement of crawlspace or….who knows?

Good luck

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