Recently I accompanied a past Client to look at some Brazilian cherry wood flooring that she was buying. I told her that the price was exorbitantly low, so I went with her to see why.

Turns out that the guy selling it owns a flooring company, and he salvages and recycles any flooring when possible. The flooring in this case was used flooring that was in very good condition from a house that had been converted from wood to tile.

As we were talking about the flooring, and getting his web site address to refer future Clients to, I kept looking behind the seller because this was catching my attention:

I commented that it looked like someone had just worked on the water heater and asked who it was. He proudly said, "Me!" That, of course, told me to be Pleasant, Polite, Personable, Positive, and Professional in my continuing discussion.

I explained what the TPR valve does and that the way the silver connector hoses had been installed created a safety hazard. If any water drains through the valve and drain pipe, you need to know about it because it can indicate that something is wrong with the water heater.

The United States averages fifty water heater explosions each year, and often it is because people don't understand that water should not be draining through the drain pipe, notwithstanding the fact that we call it a drain pipe. Because the draining water might not be very much, it needs to drain by gravity alone, which it can't do if it's forced to go uphill before doing downhill.

Here are a couple of videos showing the tremendous damage caused by water heater explosions:

1. Phoenix water heater explosion
2. Controlled water heater explosion

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