My water heater wont keep heating after a few minutes it shuts off?

Question

It is an American 30 gallon about 5 years old and operates on natural gas is this something I can fix myself ? Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

If, as you say, this unit is about 5 years old, I have to think the temp. setting has been working where it is for some time, unless someone has changed it recently. Even then, the unit should fire up for longer than just a few minutes. It takes longer than that to heat the volume of water that would have cooled to where it would call for heat. In a gas fired water heater there are very few working parts, just a pilot light and burner and the gas valve. If it's lighting and burning at all, we know those two parts are working ok, which leaves the valve itself. A couple of the other folks have mentioned warranties, but for a unit this old, the parts warranty, which is one year on everything up to a start up of 9 years, would make this out of warranty I suspect. This valve is usually in the $170 - $225 range and you need a very good hardware or major appliance parts company to get one for you. It's can be difficult to remove, only because you need a very large pipe wrench. You'd need to drain the water from the tank, shut down the gas, remove all the small pipes underneath, carefully, then unscrew the valve from the tank. Replace in reverse and you should be good .

Source(s):

35 + years of water heater installations and repairs

Asker's Rating:

Asker's Comment:

thanks ! * sigh * should just get a new one

Answer 2

Be sure your checking the temperature setting. You can adjust the temp of the water from vacation, warm, to hot. Maybe yours is set at a vacation temp which will only heat the water a little bit. If the temperature setting isn't the problem you might want to call the warranty company because the device (not sure what its called) to adjust the flow of the gas is expensive. Starts at $100 on most models, expensive plus you don't want natural gas to be leaking into your garage and the moment you turn on the dryer, an explosion occurs.

Answer 3

Sounds like a problem with the gas valve. It may not be sensing the temperature of the water accurately. Call the company who installed it because most water tanks are covered under warranty for at least 6 years.

Source(s):

HVAC tech

Answer 4

No this is something you don't want to tackle yourself unless you are familiar with the workings of a gas valve regulator. A 30 gallon water heater isn't much capacity --if you are a large household

Source(s):

30 years of maintainence