As home inspectors, we're often called upon for our opinions, which most of the time are based upon the various building codes. Sometimes they are based on past experience, stories from the newspapers and news, and sometimes even common sense.

Here in Earthquake Country, the authorities seem to be focused on, uh, earthquakes. That's no surprise.

One of the things they focus on is the water heater. Current standards require two seismic straps, one in the upper third and one in the lower third of the tank casing, similar to the middle water heater in the picture below:

Authorities here don't get all wound up if the seismic straps aren't exactly in the upper third and lower third; they appear to be okay with upper half and lower half. What they are not okay with is just one seismic strap, or the older L brackets -- or attempts at creating an L bracket -- as shown in the following picture:

There is also a little common sense in attaching a L bracket to a water heater because the only way to do it is with a screw. Here are two more pictures:

The water heater is a dangerous device since it's full of very hot water under high pressure, so the last thing you want to do is puncture the casing in any manner whatsoever. Doing so weakens the casing at that point, and while there probably won't be any water right there at the screw punctures, especially since most modern water heaters are double-walled, damage at one point can affect the water heater's engineering design.

Think of it like this: If the manufacturer had intended for the water heater casing to be punctured with screws, he would have at least shipped the screws with the water heater.

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Be sure to study for your Frenetic Friday pop quiz.

Previous pop quizzes can be found here.

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