Red neck fix?

JayinNY

Well-known Member
I'm sick and tired of buying junk! I replaced this amtrol bladder for my hydronic heating system in 2000 when I bought my house, my ex bil installed a bigger wood boiler for me in 2011, by 2013 the bladder started leaking, so 13 years is good outbof it, I went to the plumbing store and bought this bladder, less than 4 years later it's leaking, they are made in USA! Rather than but one local I went on ebay to save a few bucks,and got another one, but I was thinking how can I "patch" this one, there were only 2 pin hole rust threw spots and it only runs at most 22 lbs pressure, I got to thinking about that flex seal commercial on tv, were you can cut the bottom out of a boat, flex seal it then ride around alligator infested swamps! So I got the idea to try rubberized under body coating I have in spray cans, I coated it, let it dry, coated it again ect and it finally stoped leaking. I do have the new tank ready to go should this idea go south! But it was worth a try right!
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Why not ? Nothing to lose by trying :)
Ages ago you could buy small leak patches for tanks that had pin holes in them . They were made of a fat self tapping screw with a fine thread and a lead washer . All you did was screw it into the pinhole and deform the washer a little , if the leak was bad some linseed oil putty under it helped seal it further .
Something like this might give you more mechanical adhesion and might last a little longer .
 
what happens next is the tank bursts & water sprays out until the electric is shut off or the well runs dry. The rust that cut holes in the bladder means the metal is now weaker. Since you stopped the leak, which was letting pressure off the metal, the metal tank has full pressure on it. Now the metal itself will rip apart at the curved part of the top or at a seam. BTDT.
 
Knock on it, if it's full of water, you need to replace it. Well water seems to be the culprit that shortens their life. I have replaced 2 of them in a 10 year span if I recall. On the oil fired boiler, the water pressure was off when the tank filled with water. The old ones make a good shooting target !
 
I have bladder tanks on well water that are over 20 years old. I am sure different places are worse though.
I would not trust that not to leak any longer than it would take me to go buy a new one.
Richard in NW SC
 
2.5 years ago I had our 1992 heating system updated with new circulator pumps, some plumbing, and thermostats. The guy claimed our expansion tank (having been through 22 seasons) was too small? He replaced it with the same thing, only bigger. Looks just like yours. Maybe that was a good thing to do? I don't know. I've never gotten any crud out of the propane fired water heater here. A mile up the road at our previous house I couldn't keep bottom elements in the electric water heater, and couldn't keep the crud from piling up around it!
 
I'm not sure what it does, but a friend in the plumbing heating and cooling business going on 30 years says these, bladder tanks and electric hot water heaters are affected by well water in this area. The hot water heaters you should drain periodically to clear sediment from minerals. I had one of those expansion tanks leaking for a long time, the outside of it was covered with scale drippings from the top. Replaced that one and another in a shorter span of time. I check on the boiler often and always knock on that tank. I've got a water softener, but even then, there is scale on anything that leaks, from some mineral. The well water bladder tank has been in service a long time though, and I have oil heat and hot water, no electric hot water heater. Neighbor lady has one of those and when I replaced it a few years back, it was full of mineral scale/sediment.
 

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