Our heater is leaking. We took the cover off and inspected the heat exchanger. There is no leak at the top. We haven't taken it entirely out of the heater yet. My question is, can we still use the heater if it is leaking? We are not going to replace that heat exchanger. The part is just too darn expensive. We thought we had a plan. We were just going to run the heater long enough to get the pool heated and then flip the valves and shut the water off from going through that heater. We ran into a problem when we try to do this. They heater will kick on for about 15 seconds and then it shuts off. I'm assuming that there is not enough water pressure going through the heat exchanger? We had the part replaced before. When it was leaking that time the water leakage was very visible. Like I said earlier, we can't even see leak at the top. It also takes about five or 10 minutes before you even see the water coming out of the bottom of the heater. Could this be a separate problem? Or is it all caused by the leaking heat exchanger?
Leaking Heater Still work?
- Thread starter lhayes1976
- Start date
A slow drip isn't an immediate problem, but you can't have water spraying inside the heater when it is on.
We found it-- it's more of a small spray. Really ticks me off. This heat exchanger is only four years old. I keep my chemical levels in check and we bypass the heater most of the summer. Wish there was a way to repair--errgh! We've had the pool open for three weeks and still haven't been in. Just too cold-- we get hot days, nights still cold. Didn't realize how much we would miss our heater. It's going to cut our usage down a lot. May have to break down and buy another heat exchanger. Where's best/cheapest place to buy new heat exchanger?
The biggest culprit of a leaking heat exchanger is bad chemicals unless the unit is 20 years old and then maybe just normal erosion of the copper. What heater do you have,how many BTU's, and how old is the unit? Depending on what the unit looks like internally other wise will determine if it's worth it to replace the heat exchanger. However, in many cases the heat exchanger is almost half the cost of a new unit so why not just replace the unit with something new. Wouldn't it suck if you replaced the heat exchanger and then say the gas valve or something else expensive went.
Another option is to take the heat exchanger out, mark where the leak is and take it to a radiator repair shop. Most larger cities still have someone who does them. I had to solder up a small hole in mine last year and it is still holding fine