So I guess its more correct to call it a water heater,

Less than 2 months ago I spent 1,700 to install a new one in my own home,

It worked fine until a few days ago,.not hot water,...no froze pipes very robust flow when I turn on the hot taps.

When I go down into the cellar,..the vent pipe is really hot,.lick my finger and touch it and you get a sizzle,.so I know its heating,..but after running the tap of the sinks,..the hot water pipe from the water heater is cold.

I have a call into the installer but its super cold here rt now and they run other plumbing things and it seems all service people are behind.

I thought water heaters were pretty simple, but wondering if there is a mixing valve or something in the interior of this that might be malfunctioning ,..I turned the thermostat up and and then down without any effect.

Anyone else have this happen to them,..I'm guessing there is probably nothing I can do about it.

The water heater has a drain. Run some water out of it and see if the water is hot.

Makes no sense is what I thought also,.basement where all the pipes are is very warm, if there were frozen pipes,.it has never happen before

"So I guess its more correct to call it a water heater"

"So I guess its more correct to call it a water heater"

NE has good advice on diagnosing it.

I ran into a similar issue on a rehab. I had installed a new Delta shower valve but hadn't yet put the cartridges in, it still had the plastic installation body installed. I turned the hot water on and was trying to get hot water in the kitchen sink but was getting nothing but cold, the water on the spigot of the water heater was hot. I cut the feed to the water heater and was still getting water flow from the hot in the kitchen and then it hit me that it was back feeding through the shower valve. I installed the cartridges and voila, hot water.

Thank you and all the others that have responded,..I only have one single facet,.its on the kicten sink

Is this heater electric or gas?

If electric, did you check the breaker?

If the hot water is running out quickly, you may have a bad dip tube or one of the two heating elements in an eclectic HWT is bad.

to answer the last few questions its a 2 month old Reem professional, gas heater

worked fine until this last week and then produced NO hot water,.the vent pipe is super hot and the burner seems to always be on,.checked it many times

.the return hot water pipe stays cold,..no matter how long I try any hot lwater tap,.

I shut off the water feed and the cold water acts the same to the taps..

So I turned on the drain of the unit,..only cold water comes out

I wonder where all the heat from the constanly running burner is going? Again it just runs and runs, it makes no sense to me anyway,..

Thank you NE,..hopefully they are coming soon, this sales and instaler has 5 stars and two frinds said the was great with them.

The heater should not be burning constantly unless you have a massive water leak somewhere. That is a concern as well. The T&P valve could be open because the heat is up too much from constant water flow. Feel the drain pipe for the T&P valve to see how hot it is. If the pipe is plumbed directly into a drain you might not realize it is open. You should be able to hear the water flowing tho.

Turn the thermostat down to the lowest setting to see if it shuts off. Shut off the cold side supply to the water heater. If the T&P valve is on the side you will continue losing water until the level gets to there.

OK found the problem,.(This is embarrassing ) since I badly hurt my leg,.. I'M not very ambulatory.I'm moving back into this big house,.my son lived here with his 4 friends for several years, and I haven't gone up to the third floor for months, the guys they sent I have to say were very good at first they couldn't figure it out either,..finally one told the other to turn the water off at the unit,..after a little while he told him to turn it back on

(They had checked all around for a possible bad mixing valve but didn't find anything)

but when he told his partner to turn the valves on,.and he could hear water running in the far end of the basement,,so they had checked the bathroom on the first and second floor and went up to the third floor and found the tap in the sink running at a good clip ( I would have thought with the burner constantly running it would have at least been warm,...but I guess the volume was enough to not allow the heat to build up in the heater,.,they mearly turned it off,..and problem solved,.I'm very slowly moving back in staying one or two days a week for now ..and some weeks not at all,.and there are signs of someone using that space,.I'm thinking one of my son's friends,that use to live there,...so locks will be chaged very soon and the security alarm will be turned back on,.

Thank you all for your imput and help, .I din't realise how much I like hotbwater until now,

That's still confusing,..the lack of hot water has only been about a week...but I haven't been up there in months,.they said they couldn't shut the facet off,..so they had to shut it off by the petcocks under the sink. So I wonder if for some reason,..without being touched,.it just started to flow,(?)..I have never had that happen in my other house or in my rentals,. They also said they thought it was very unusual,.I co ,.guess if it was a lesser drip, (I know they ad up),..I will see it on my water bill,.but with no one living yet at that address,.my last water bill was so low that I was charged the minimum for just having a city water connection.

I still feel pretty dumb for not checing up there,..

Open faucet = Massive water leak

Tell the water department about the leak if your bill goes crazy. They should give you a break because it was all clean water being used. For me it takes about three months so they are sure you fixed the problem.

yeah i

just went up there,.Struggled .{not easy with a crushed ankle} to check thing out,

So on that facet they guys turned off the petcock valve underweight the sink, the cold was left on,..so I turned that on and IT WOULDN'T shut off,..its a problem with the facet,..its a fairly new,..that is about 5-8 year old,..(the house is about a 100 years old) so it goes along with the era,.soon to be replaced with a new one,