Our mission

Tank as combustion byproduct meter

houser

Past President
About 5 weeks or so ago I fixed a problem in my house that most certainly would have killed my tank or even worse.

6 weeks ago my old water heater vent pipe collapsed one night. Next morning I walked into the garage and it was very very warm. I knew something was wrong so I opened the garage door immediately. A glance at my pH meter showed 7.1 ( a drop from an average of 8.2). In a span of a few hours I killed a few frags, both my clams, and seriously browned out some other stuff. Basically my tank was about to crash.

Fast forward a few hours. Problem temporarily remedied, ventilation improved, correcting chemistry. Fast forward one week and I'd installed a completely new double wall vent pipe system with high wind tophat (or whatever they're called). When I pulled the original pipe out of the wall it was very old, paper thin, and like swiss cheese. So that single wall pipe was leaking for a long time.

I could never quite explain why my tank wasn't completely stable from a chemistry perspective. My pH was swinging around. Hindsight is 20/20 because it dipped in the morning a little and again in the evening. Not every evening though. Now it's clear. Morning depression was the morning showers my wife and I took. Evening depression was filling up the bath for the kids a few times a week. And that explains how the cheato and stand of caleurpa grow so well despite zero perceived nutrients. Well they were actually flooded with CO2.

Since the repair my garage humidity is lower due to improved ventilation (tophat) and the fact I'm not venting water vapor (combustion byproduct) back into my garage. My tank runs at 8.2+ to 8.3 24/7. Things literally took off growing, acros shooting new branches, etc... Browns back to blues and purples (slowly).

Learning experience for sure. We had warning meters in the house, I just never thought I actually had one in the garage.
 
Hmmm wonder why your vent pipe was so rusted out, newer water heater attached? I know I couldn't get those 90+% efficient furnaces because they pull so much heat out of the air they'd vent water and I would have needed PVC (amongst other things) as a vent.
 
Back
Top