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Water Heater Rocket

T

T_Bone

Well-known Member
Yep that's correct! On the local TV news A Phoenix man was blown out of bed at 6am this morning from his "electric" water heater exploding.

They found the water heater 300ft down the street laying on it's side, the roof of the garage with a huge hole in it, the front of the house concrete "block" wall severely bowed towards the outside and the wall off the foundation in several places, several windows blown out, and several of his neighbors windows blown out.

Had I not seen the damage with my own eyes, I'd call BS on this one. Wow!

The guy was sleeping in the opposite corner of the house of where the water heater was located and was not injured. In his closing statement, the landlord and renter had worked on the water heater the night before.

I'll follow the story for a few days and see if they ever tell what they found what caused the explosion. I'm thinking the pressure relief valve had to be removed and the T-stats wired closed.

T_Bone
 
The landlord might have problems with his insurance if he is not a liscenced plumber.


And yes I agree the fool might have replaced a drippy pressure relief valve with a plug or something.

And replaced a thermostat and wired it wrong where it heated all the time.
 
IFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF that was a PROPANE heater, there would be nothing left to the entire neighborhood block!
 
I don't think that a water heater would hold enough pressure to cause that much damage. But in our area, water sometimes has a lot of methane or "drift" gas in it. I know people that can light a flame on their sink faucets. One family has spent a couple thousand to have a degasser system put in.
 
Yep, probably screwed a plug in the popoff to keep it from leaking. Those things are on there for a reason, you know.
 
NOPE--- This has been done on Mythbusters. It is for real and they did it with and electric heater. They blew it up to around 500 feet. They built a model house to california code with a wood roof and all. KAAAAABOOOOOM!!!!!!! Wired out the high limits and plugged the TP valve. Great show, loved when they blew up the poor Mack cement truck!!!!! Jeffcat
 
It's called a BLEVE. It had nothing to due with combustion.
The water in the heater was heated well above 212F until the pressure exceeded the tank's pressure limit. The 250-275F water flashed to steam. Water expands some 1740 times in volume when it turns to steam.
 
How would that be different than an engine radiator? The water is heated to over 212 degrees but held in by the pressure. Once you hit the limit of the pressure cap, it blows off as steam. If you capped off a car radiator with a solid cap, would the radiator blow apart assuming a hose didn't blow first?
 
(quoted from post at 21:29:17 08/14/08) How would that be different than an engine radiator? The water is heated to over 212 degrees but held in by the pressure. Once you hit the limit of the pressure cap, it blows off as steam. If you capped off a car radiator with a solid cap, would the radiator blow apart assuming a hose didn't blow first?
Click to expand...

Nope, the pressure cap allows a controlled release of pressure.
In a flash steam explosion you have a large mass of water that is pressurized so that the water-steam phase change point is above 212 degrees. If all the pressure is suddenly allowed to drop to atmospheric pressure then the entire mass of water flashes into steam all at the same time. In a flash steam explosion a quart of water is equivalent to a half pound of dynamite.

There is a big reason you need a license to operate a boiler or large pressure vessel.

Pooh Bear (aka Fluff For Brains)
 
Yep, I believe it.

Building code around here requires that water heaters must be on the opposite end of the house from the bedrooms. Or
 
Yep, I believe it.

Building code around here requires that water heaters must be on the opposite end of the house from the bedrooms.
 
Well they showed the top end of the tank. No T&P valve and the all 3 nipples were sheared off at the threads, all iron pipe fittings, stubs about 1" long or so.

Given that all three appeared to have threaded nipples installed before the explosion, it leads me to believe there was a external auxillary heating source? Solar is very popular here, but that's typical at 180ºf or so and wouldn't cause that.

There was no tank distortion shown on the top or sides, no skin insulation (why?), road rash on the sides and they did NOT show the bottom of the tank.

The garage roof is totaly distroyed as it took out several rafters on the way out thru the roof. Almost appears as if it went sideways thru the roof.

T_Bone
 
Hard to believe it wouldn't blow out a copper pipe first. The tenet was lucky not to be badly scalded by the steam.
 
The water heater goes off like a rocket because the bottom rusts out and the pressure relief valve is missing and a thermostat contact welded closed.

Gerald J.
 
We had a propane explosion a few years ago at an apartment complex the next town over. The tennant had tried fixing something since the landlord could not be bothered to send someone out to fix it. It blew out windows in the entire building and car windows in the parking lot. Luckily being a college area, this man and his wife were the only two in the entire building when it happened. Blew the roof clean off the two story complex as well as all the windows.
 
Lots of stored potential energy in steam. When it bursts, the kinetic energy is tremendous. The heater on mythbusters evidently blew out the bottom of the tank. On cylindrical tanks, the ends are typically the weakest points and often are made of heavier gauge metal.
 
Good thing the water heater in our basement is on the wife"s side of the bed.
 
Back on April 16th of this year the main steam boiler blew up at UW-Whitewater and they are still cleaning up the mess. Luckly it wasn"t the steam side and all the fuels were contained by safety devices when it blew up. The eight guys that were in the plant at the time all walked away from it. Steam, and pressure, nothing to mess with.
 
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