12/01/2024
https://www.facebook.com/100063455776083/posts/1164903818968133/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v
✅ I have noticed a big trend on my post with misunderstanding expansion tanks 🛑. About 1/2 the people say they’re not needed. 1/4 say water heater has “last 25 years” without one. 1/4 say its important. Let me try to explain some myths and some logic. First, even though the expansion tank is almost always installed near the water heater. It is not for the water heater. It can help release pressure pushing on the T&P at the water heater but the expansion tank is to protect the entire distribution plumbing system, especially valve solenoids in icemakers and dishwashers, toilet fill valves, and pipe fittings. Water heating expands, for example; 50 gallons of water cold will expand to approximately 50.2 gallons of volume at 130 degrees. If your home is on a well, you should have pressure tank and it’s not a problem. If your home is on a city water supply, and you have a check valve (which is a one-way valve) a pressure reducing valve, or a backflow preventer, the system is considered closed loop and heating expanding water has nowhere to go other than to expand and push onto plumbing fixtures. The expansion tank has a rubber air filled bladder (that actually needs adjusted) that simply absorbs this expansion and takes the pressure off your plumbing pipes, your appliances, and your fixtures. A lot of people say they’re a cash grab but an expansion tank literally cost about $55 plus a fitting or two of course you have pay a plumber to install it, but it does not increase the cost of an install that much. (And required by code for most new water heater installs) Even if your water heater last 25 years, some other signs that your home needed an expansion tank would be pinhole leaks incopper, sink or faucet valve cartridges not lasting very long, toilets randomly turned on to fill, failing dishwasher or icemaker solenoid, dripping T&P water heater valve, a “rush” of water when you first turn a sink on. Yes, these can mean other things, but these are all symptoms of your plumbing system being over pressurized while the water heater cycles. 
