What to do about the Hot Water Heater’s Exhaust?
I’ve finally started addressing some of the items identified in our “Home Energy Audit” from a few weeks ago.
First, I made two separate lists: Stuff I can Do, Stuff I’ll need a Professional for.
Then, for the Stuff I can Do list, I prioritized everything and identified a few tools and materials that I can start gathering now.
But in that Home Energy Audit was one top priority… theoretically, a matter of life-and-death: Our gas hot-water heater’s “exhaust tube” wasn’t “drawing” enough… meaning it was probably getting clogged at the other end.
This means that the hot water heater wasn’t “venting” properly… and therefore, we could get a build-up of carbon monoxide in the basement…and then the rest of the house. (Fortunately, we do already have a carbon monoxide detector in the basement.)
When our Energy Auditor identified this to me, she said I’d probably have to get up on the roof, figure out which pipe was that particular exhaust pipe, and then remove a bird’s nest or whatever was blocking the flow.
OK, no big deal, right?
Well, I just came down from the roof.
There is ONE pipe up there. One. And from the sulfur smell, I’d say it’s probably a plumbing air-flow pipe. (It’s a big 6-inch pipe.)
So, I went back down to the basement and looked again. Sure enough, they’d plugged that pipe directly into the chimney for the first floor fireplace. Yes, the brickwork for that chimney extends into the basement.
To be honest, I can see why they would do that. IF the fireplace was actually a working fireplace, this would make a lot of sense. It’s only a good 8-10 feet from the hot water heater to that chimney.
But now… I look at it and wonder: now what?
You see, that plumbing pipe was on the one “easily accessible roof” of the house: the nice, flat roof on the screened-in sleeping porch on the back of the house.
The chimney, on the other hand, juts out of the sharply-sloped attic roof…. some 2.5-3 stories up in the air. The chimney is capped, but it’s rather hard for me to see or get at the cap.
And really, if all they did was stick a pipe straight into the chimney, how likely is it that what is restricting the DRAW in that pipe is at the very TOP of the chimney?
Not likely. I’m thinking there may be a whole bunch of dust and dirt that has built-up over the years right IN FRONT of this exhaust pipe, some 20+ feet down from the roof. Or maybe there is an animal nest in there, some 10 feet down the chimney.
So what are my other options?
Well, I could do what the A/C guys did for the air conditioner (when we replaced it back in… 2005, I think): run a NEW exhaust pipe straight out one of the basement windows. This would be far easier to do and would probably be easier to manage in the long-run. Still, that’d make TWO pipes running side-by-side out that window. And I’m thinking, since we’re dealing with a gas appliance here, that I’d have to call a plumber to get it done properly.
Ah, what fun! At least I can look at my Stuff I Can Do list… and know that there’s plenty I can do right now with just a caulking gun and some caulk!
Looks to be fairly nice weather this week, so I’ll probably get started on that caulking shortly.
Have a good one!
-= Dave =-