# Water Heaters in Attics Pictures



## TallCoolOne (Dec 19, 2010)




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## TallCoolOne (Dec 19, 2010)

Can't wait to change out this looks like alot of fun


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## dclarke (Dec 22, 2012)

i hope i never have to do that. why no drip leg for the gas ?


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## TallCoolOne (Dec 19, 2010)

dclarke said:


> i hope i never have to do that. why no drip leg for the gas ?


I do this stuff all the time, it suxs. First you have get old water heaters out of attic onto 2nd story floor, then have to lug the Mofo's up and down stairs to the downstairs, with runners and sheets to keep any rust from hitting carpet. 

I am just waiting and watching for it to kick the bucket, Water heaters in my area only last about 9 years

House was built in 2006 and at the time it was not required by code


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## dclarke (Dec 22, 2012)

around here i have luckily never seen a water heater in an attic. water heaters are lucky to last 9 years unless its city water.


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## TallCoolOne (Dec 19, 2010)

I live in Collin County, Dallas County is city directly south 

We are city water all around here

Texas has many lakes that are about 40K to 100K acres that are watersheds and provide drinking water to each city

Texas only has one natural lake, called Lake Caddo and it was formed by beavers many many years ago

All the rest are man made. But I lived in Dallas County and my drinking was from the famous Lake Fork (Bass Fishing Capital of the world) and water heaters last 12 to 15 years.

My city gets it water from Lake Lavon and it chews up water heaters


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## Titletownplumbr (Feb 16, 2011)

TallCoolOne said:


>


 
What a cobbled up mess, it's sad that some stick built homes have taken on the quality of workmanship found only in mobile homes.


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## drain surgeon (Jun 17, 2010)

I had never seen W.H.s in the attic untill I moved south. For the life of me I dont understand why its done. Even with the drain pan piped outside I have seen many that were clogged with insulation so the pan overflows right down through the ceiling. And as pointed out getting them up and down folding stairs is a very risky thing. Put them on the first floor unless there is a real staircase to the attic or put in a tankless


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## The bear (Sep 27, 2012)

changed out two electric water heaters in attic last week. Worst part is always getting old heaters out and downstairs. This time after we drained them we laid them on their back and covered bottoms with large contractor bags and taped them on. Worked great.


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## TX MECH PLUMBER (May 27, 2011)

Try the ones in a closet half in the attic half the closet. Usually in the bathroom or kitchen. Man I'm glad I don't do service yet at least. Lol


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## TallCoolOne (Dec 19, 2010)

Titletownplumbr said:


> What a cobbled up mess, it's sad that some stick built homes have taken on the quality of workmanship found only in mobile homes.


It was illegal aliens who are building all the house in my area.

I live in the fastest growing city in USA, Frisco Texas. Been that way for over a decade.

A house is just now a production piece built by and plumbed and by the best $8 per hour laborer you can get


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## easttexasplumb (Oct 13, 2010)

TX MECH PLUMBER said:


> Try the ones in a closet half in the attic half the closet. Usually in the bathroom or kitchen. Man I'm glad I don't do service yet at least. Lol


But the burner sure is easy to work on.


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## rjbphd (Feb 5, 2010)

dclarke said:


> around here i have luckily never seen a water heater in an attic. water heaters are lucky to last 9 years unless its city water.


Water heater on well water lasts longer than on city water.


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

I have had a fair number of water heaters in attics. To an engineer, a water heater in an attic is just a symbol on a print; what takes an engineer a few seconds to draw on his print, might take you several hours to install new.

Engineers will justify installing a W/H up in an attic by saying that point-of-use heaters are more energy-efficient than one that's 100' away from the point-of-use. And that is true. So they might specify a W/H in the attic directly above the master bathroom.

And if you're a service plumber who has to first _*remove*_ the leaker from the attic and *then re-install* a new one up there, well that takes even longer. And if the customer has nice white rugs in the area of their home where you have to drag the leaker through, then longer still. That's why an experienced service company will charge a premium to do the job. An attic W/H is a 2-man job; maybe the second man isn't needed all day, but he's needed for some of the job. Whereas an install in a garage is a 1-man job. 

I have even cut 40-gallon heaters loose from the wall in a garage, and wheeled them out on a hand truck (carefully) to the lawn, then flopped them on the lawn to drain while I start installing the new one. Attic installs are not as easy.


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## revenge (Jun 30, 2011)

TallCoolOne said:


> It was illegal aliens who are building all the house in my area.
> 
> I live in the fastest growing city in USA, Frisco Texas. Been that way for over a decade.
> 
> A house is just now a production piece built by and plumbed and by the best $8 per hour laborer you can get


Funny part its always an illegal alien messing up, but are the boss, owners,contractor,superatendant,inspector,foreman,project manager are all they illegals to i tell you its a illegal alien cospiracy to build a shioty america hide all the tool stop selling to do the illegals:whistling2:


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## Michaelcookplum (May 1, 2011)

That's some of the worst work I've seen in awhile

Post pics of what you do


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## rjbphd (Feb 5, 2010)

Correct me if I'm wrong, water heaters in attic get hotter faster due to being closer to the sun???


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## Plumbus (Aug 4, 2008)

Part of the problem is the desire not to tie up usable square footage. Another cart and horse story.


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## OldSchool (Jan 30, 2010)

rjbphd said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, water heaters in attic get hotter faster due to being closer to the sun???


The higher altitude you go the faster water boils.... So I guess you are right


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## RW Plumbing (Aug 16, 2010)

revenge said:


> Funny part its always an illegal alien messing up, but are the boss, owners,contractor,superatendant,inspector,foreman,project manager are all they illegals to i tell you its a illegal alien cospiracy to build a shioty america hide all the tool stop selling to do the illegals:whistling2:


It starts at the top true, owners and contractors using these people. It doesn't change the fact that illegals are committing a crime just by the virtue of them being here. Then another by working for cash and skipping out of their fair share of taxes. And yet another by doing plumbing work without a license. So saying its their fault is true, not the whole story but true non the less.


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## dclarke (Dec 22, 2012)

rjbphd said:


> Water heater on well water lasts longer than on city water.


Maybe where you are from. Here in Delaware we have many shallow wells with lots of iron.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Plumbing Zone


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## 89plumbum (May 14, 2011)

You always look at jobs in your flip-flops?


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## dclarke (Dec 22, 2012)

I've always heard the aquifers in my area are the cheswold the Columbia then the piney point from shallowest to deepest. I'm trying to research a bit but its tough from a phone. I just know that the city of dover is in the piney point and has good water and plenty of original water heaters from the 60s.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Plumbing Zone


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## revenge (Jun 30, 2011)

RW Plumbing said:


> It starts at the top true, owners and contractors using these people. It doesn't change the fact that illegals are committing a crime just by the virtue of them being here. Then another by working for cash and skipping out of their fair share of taxes. And yet another by doing plumbing work without a license. So saying its their fault is true, not the whole story but true non the less.


Ok, when illegal cross the border yes they are commiting a crime. Thats a givin, but most are doing it to better there lives. Now i am not defending them but they should go about it the legal way. Now the goverment spent millions apon millions of dollars for the border fence. What a crock a shiot and stupidy on the goverment build all the fences you want the cross through undergound tunnels. As for working for cash thats the only choice they got. If it wasnt for legal citizens owners of these buisnesses paying them cash we wouldnt have that problem inho. So now you have an illegal and a legal citizen breaking the law. Now doing plumbing without a liscense again, if a legal citizen wouldnt give them the opportunity to work then they wouldnt be doing it to begin with. So illegals doing plumbing in it entirely not there fault. They are trying to survive and work if plumbing buisness owners wouldnt hire them then they wouldnt be their right. Now if they were not getting payed then they wouldnt be there right. So for the sake of argument lets say they doing the work for free and not even getting paid and they do the ****iest job in the world. At the end of the day its the rmp duty to make sure everything is fine and correct. I mean he is the responsible master plumber right. So if he doesnt give to shiots of the plumbing his company was contrated to do. He wouldnt check he pulled permits and he is takeing the risk right. So at the end its actually the legal citizens fault that the new consruction is all fubared up. I am gonna be completley honest it irritates the piss out of me when some sees or posts a pic of shioty work and have to blame illegals wet backs or nacho paco or pablo. First were is the actuall proof a mexican national or illegal did the work second. I have seen and heard of legal citizens that are lisc plumbers screw up a p trap. I just hate the fact that its always the wet backs fault. Instead of saying handy hack or what ever in the debate i will agree to disagree. but at the end its actually the legal citisen who gave the illegal immigrant the chance and opportunity to learn and mess up plumbing no matter what color ethic or creed this started with the first legal citisen saying yes ill pay you twenty dollars a day to work for me :yes:


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## RW Plumbing (Aug 16, 2010)

revenge said:


> Ok, when illegal cross the border yes they are commiting a crime. Thats a givin, but most are doing it to better there lives. Now i am not defending them but they should go about it the legal way. Now the goverment spent millions apon millions of dollars for the border fence. What a crock a shiot and stupidy on the goverment build all the fences you want the cross through undergound tunnels. As for working for cash thats the only choice they got. If it wasnt for legal citizens owners of these buisnesses paying them cash we wouldnt have that problem inho. So now you have an illegal and a legal citizen breaking the law. Now doing plumbing without a liscense again, if a legal citizen wouldnt give them the opportunity to work then they wouldnt be doing it to begin with. So illegals doing plumbing in it entirely not there fault. They are trying to survive and work if plumbing buisness owners wouldnt hire them then they wouldnt be their right. Now if they were not getting payed then they wouldnt be there right. So for the sake of argument lets say they doing the work for free and not even getting paid and they do the ****iest job in the world. At the end of the day its the rmp duty to make sure everything is fine and correct. I mean he is the responsible master plumber right. So if he doesnt give to shiots of the plumbing his company was contrated to do. He wouldnt check he pulled permits and he is takeing the risk right. So at the end its actually the legal citizens fault that the new consruction is all fubared up. I am gonna be completley honest it irritates the piss out of me when some sees or posts a pic of shioty work and have to blame illegals wet backs or nacho paco or pablo. First were is the actuall proof a mexican national or illegal did the work second. I have seen and heard of legal citizens that are lisc plumbers screw up a p trap. I just hate the fact that its always the wet backs fault. Instead of saying handy hack or what ever in the debate i will agree to disagree. but at the end its actually the legal citisen who gave the illegal immigrant the chance and opportunity to learn and mess up plumbing no matter what color ethic or creed this started with the first legal citisen saying yes ill pay you twenty dollars a day to work for me :yes:


Yes, it is there fault. It doesn't matter the reasons, it's a crime. Stop defending criminals, there's no excuse for it. I could steal from people to "give my family a better life" doesn't make it right. Anyone doing plumbing without a license is stealing from myself or one of my fellow plumbing brothers.


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## revenge (Jun 30, 2011)

ok its there fault a lisc plumber allows them to work for them, yep illegals carry master lisc to bid jobs and pull permits those dam illegals lmfao. If you want to know why or how an illegal is doing plumbing, its cause they pulling permits and calling for inspections. If you dont want an illegal to be doing plumbing then dont hire them plain an symple two people are breaking the law. but the one that can prevent is in fact a legal citizen. btw i said i wasnt defending them but i did say if they werent allowed the opportunity to do the work by someone hiring them they wouldnt be their in the first place. Plane and simple you want to stop illegals from working in the us stop hiring them. They should pass a law that if you are caught with an illegal working for you its felony punishble by 2 to 5 years in prison for each illegal employee you got. then maybe illegals would not be working here but as long as legal buisness owner hire them you gonna see them working all over the place have you wondered why you wont see an illegal working at a mcdonalds they ask for your social that sad a fliping burger joint wont hire an illegal but a plumbing company will. Like i said before you want illegals to stop takeing food out our mouths tell legal citizens to stop hiring them end of story


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## RW Plumbing (Aug 16, 2010)

revenge said:


> ok its there fault a lisc plumber allows them to work for them, yep illegals carry master lisc to bid jobs and pull permits those dam illegals lmfao. If you want to know why or how an illegal is doing plumbing, its cause they pulling permits and calling for inspections. If you dont want an illegal to be doing plumbing then dont hire them plain an symple two people are breaking the law. but the one that can prevent is in fact a legal citizen. btw i said i wasnt defending them but i did say if they werent allowed the opportunity to do the work by someone hiring them they wouldnt be their in the first place. Plane and simple you want to stop illegals from working in the us stop hiring them. They should pass a law that if you are caught with an illegal working for you its felony punishble by 2 to 5 years in prison for each illegal employee you got. then maybe illegals would not be working here but as long as legal buisness owner hire them you gonna see them working all over the place have you wondered why you wont see an illegal working at a mcdonalds they ask for your social that sad a fliping burger joint wont hire an illegal but a plumbing company will. Like i said before you want illegals to stop takeing food out our mouths tell legal citizens to stop hiring them end of story


Except for all the times where no permit is pulled. You're talking about all the ones working for licensed guys which is a much smaller number than the guys running around working out of the back of their van.


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## revenge (Jun 30, 2011)

you think those illegals came over here with some kind of plumbing experiece please, and as for those people working out of the back of their trucks are illegals is steryotyping all mexicans working out of van are illegals let just agree there hacks and the reason why i was talking about buisness owners was at fault also was due to the op post of illegals doing track homes. those home need permits and need expections right. inho those guys and all hacks working out the back of their trucks with lisc was hired at one time or another buy a lisc plumber and didnt make it so they decided to be hacks


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## dclarke (Dec 22, 2012)

I lost my job at sobieski mechanical from Wilmington De. for their practice of hiring illegals. I voiced my opinion and they didn't like that. One person would be legal with a business and would bring his family on and sobieski would use them. The 1 legal person just had a business license not a licensed plumber.

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## SHAUN C (Feb 16, 2011)

dclarke said:


> I lost my job at sobieski mechanical from Wilmington De. for their practice of hiring illegals. I voiced my opinion and they didn't like that. One person would be legal with a business and would bring his family on and sobieski would use them. The 1 legal person just had a business license not a licensed plumber.
> 
> Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Plumbing Zone


Was Dan gears working there?


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## dclarke (Dec 22, 2012)

Never heard of him. Its actually a really large company. They have a southern division based in Milton de. That's where i worked out of.

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## revenge (Jun 30, 2011)

dclarke said:


> I lost my job at sobieski mechanical from Wilmington De. for their practice of hiring illegals. I voiced my opinion and they didn't like that. One person would be legal with a business and would bring his family on and sobieski would use them. The 1 legal person just had a business license not a licensed plumber.
> 
> Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Plumbing Zone


Exactly what i meant a legal business hiring immigrant illegals to train them into plumbers


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## TerryO (Oct 12, 2012)

Back to the OP, the crazy ones are the leaking water heater in the attic calls where you find 3 previous leakers that were just moved over and left in the attic :-( 

Lately the trend is to install tankless in the attic. This is even crazier.. When a tankless leaks, and they all will, no pan will catch all the water. What happened to the mechanical closet where your furnace and water heater had a nice easily serviced home? That's right, usable square footage is more important than mechanical function.

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill


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## TallCoolOne (Dec 19, 2010)

89plumbum said:


> You always look at jobs in your flip-flops?


This is my house that I purchased in 2008.

And decked it the same year for storage


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## revenge (Jun 30, 2011)

I saw one where the heater was installed on behind the AC unit with no possible way is access had to t reroute the heater in the garage


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## TallCoolOne (Dec 19, 2010)

89plumbum said:


> You always look at jobs in your flip-flops?


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## TerryO (Oct 12, 2012)

revenge said:


> I saw one where the heater was installed on behind the AC unit with no possible way is access had to t reroute the heater in the garage


Yep. I've had some where the only way to replace was cut sheetrock and studs behind bedroom door adjacent to the utility closet then let homeowner find someone to close it back up.

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill


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## piper1 (Dec 16, 2011)

Tommy plumber said:


> I have had a fair number of water heaters in attics. To an engineer, a water heater in an attic is just a symbol on a print; what takes an engineer a few seconds to draw on his print, might take you several hours to install new.
> 
> Engineers will justify installing a W/H up in an attic by saying that point-of-use heaters are more energy-efficient than one that's 100' away from the point-of-use. And that is true. So they might specify a W/H in the attic directly above the master bathroom.
> 
> ...


 can relate to that. oh wait, the new air handler is in the way. the new pull down stairs are norrower. then before .the new closet build in covers half the scuttle hole. or my favorte, this is an addition what scuttle hole? btw thats new white carpet in the whole house.


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## peas of krap (Aug 4, 2011)

Check this out.8 years ago I changed out a 50 gal electric in the attic of a 500k house.
The heater would not fit down the attic acces and we had to cut it in half. These heaters were in tandem and I asked the HO if they wanted to change the other now while the bad one is out. They said no they are selling the house.
Flash forward to now. Going back to the same house in the am to drain down both water heaters to replace the one we could have done then.
Also the new HO told me not to worry about getting the old one down just leave it up there.
I'll post some picks tomorrow.


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## antiCon (Jun 15, 2012)

Figured I'd add a few from Houston 









































These all jobs I gave est. on a repair for something.


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

antiCon said:


> Figured I'd add a few from Houston
> 
> 
> 
> ...





That vent is too short. Doesn't look like 5' vertical in that picture. When you say you gave estimates, that sounds like you never heard back from the customers.


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## antiCon (Jun 15, 2012)

Tommy plumber said:


> http://www.plumbingzone.com/attachm...r-heaters-attics-pictures-image-224059765.jpg
> 
> That vent is too short. Doesn't look like 5' vertical in that picture. When you say you gave estimates, that sounds like you never heard back from the customers.


Nope never heard back this heater was nowhere near code husband put in in with a friend 10 yrs back. And wanted me to install a new heater without bringing it to spec I walked with my 3400.00 est for all the work 3rd floor attic in a condo where I had to park 100 yards away.. No Thx


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## antiCon (Jun 15, 2012)

Also you can prolly tell it was disconnected already... But wouldn't drain so that's why I was called out lol


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## jc-htownplumber (Feb 29, 2012)

Well don't have a pic of the old two heaters in the attic but we installed this r-94lsi with the circ-logic system


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## plumberpro (Jan 1, 2013)

those like some very difficult jobs 3rd floor attic yikes! tell go if he wants lower price have him remove and carry out old wh and carry in new one to see just how hard and big of a job it is especially when it won't drain!!

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## gear junkie (Jun 20, 2008)

Unistrut lag bolted to the trusses, eye bolt through a 3/4" steel cap, Block and tackle. Have the wh in a body bag so you don't spill nothing....easy peezy.


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## antiCon (Jun 15, 2012)

gear junkie said:


> Unistrut lag bolted to the trusses, eye bolt through a 3/4" steel cap, Block and tackle. Have the wh in a body bag so you don't spill nothing....easy peezy.


SHHHHHUUSH!! dont tell the HO


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## plumberpro (Jan 1, 2013)

what do you do when they built the access smaller than the wh? no easy task to cut a gas wh in half could make a major mess would be sure to tell ho it is t&m

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