Bradford White Power Vent Replacement in Eagan

Replacing A Bradford White Power Vent The Right Way

Bradford White power vent installed in Eagan! Troy explains step-by-step procedures how the existing water heater is drained out, and what to do when the drain valve will not work. This customer is replacing a Rheem heater with an American-made Bradford White power vent! Again, we stand behind these great heaters. Some signs to consider with a failing water heater include discolored water, water buildup around the unit, lukewarm water temperature, strange noises, and the length of time since repair/replacement. If you need a new water heater or would like a price on these great units, please give us a call!

Watch our Video and You’ll Learn:

• Replacing A Bradford White Power Vent The Right Way.
• How To Do A  Bradford White Power Vent Replacement Properly.
• Things To Remember When Replacing A Brad Ford White Power Vent.

Listen To The Audio

Enjoy this transcript below!

Troy: Hey, everybody Champion Plumbing out of Eagan, Minnesota doing a water heater replacement. This is a Rheem Power Vent water heater. This one is a little confusing, but good for everyone to see. So, the Power Vents use PVC and vent out the side of the house or the roof.

This used to have a… It still has a metal liner that somebody retrofitted the furnace, high-efficiency furnace, and Power Vent into, and it goes out the roof. So, that’s all fine and dandy, but if you ever do that, make sure you use three-inch venting because now we’re in a situation where we have 1, 2, 3 90s on two-inch venting, which is actually the max for Rheem. And then on the roof, there’s another 90 and a half. So, it’s over the turn count for Rheem.

We’re going to end up putting in a Bradford White. For whatever reason… Well, they’re made in America, but they can handle more turns, so we know we won’t have a problem with that one.
So, water heater replacement, Power Vent. This one just stopped working. It’s not currently draining, so we’re going to show you another trick on how to drain a water heater that won’t drain in just a second. But, Rheem Power Vent water heater.

All right. Champion Plumbing, Eagan. I’m here with Tito on this one. And I will record him putting the… What we do is we take the hot side and we cut open the line, and we stick this long hose down it, and we have a pump attachment for it. If you guys are doing water heaters and you don’t have these Milwaukee pumps, you’re killing yourself. These pumps are amazing. So, highly recommend you get that. And that’s pretty much the only way that this trick is going to work.

So, we’ve drained some water out of it. I’m going to turn the pump back on. It’s going to get noisy. So, we’ve drained some water out of it. We always drain them into the laundry tubs as well so that we’re not being accused of backing up floor drains that are already plugged.

So, he’s going to cut the hot side of the line. And the reason we’re still draining some of this is we want to relieve any pressure that could be in the system. You can see that, oh, it’s spiting like that. It is not draining very good. Wait until you see what happens when we hook the pump up, going in through the hot side.

Tito, make sure you tighten up, close the drain valve first because I loosened it up a little bit. So, I want to make sure. Kill the pump now. Yep. Go ahead. So, we were trying to do some tricks to get it to drain, and nothing was successful, and without taking this completely apart and creating quite a mess. This utility room is very small, so we don’t really have room to make a mess and clean it up.
So, he’s cut open the hot side. I know it’s bad.

There we go. There’s a good view. Now we’ll take the… It’s just half-inched PEX. And we use Uponor because we think it’s the best, but that’s up to each individual plumber or homeowner. So, he’s got the hot side cut. A little bit of finagling. You’ll want to come up and around the top with this one. There we go.

There. We’re getting there. And you want to push this PEX down to the bottom of the tank, or close to the bottom of the tank.

So, that heat trap wouldn’t allow us to get past it, so Tito is pulling the nipple off of the hot side just so we can get access. This is all just to get a water heater draining. Some people are like, “Oh, should only take 10 minutes.” No, it takes a little while. And unfortunately, the majority of them will give you some sort of a hiccup, whether it’s draining or venting or something.

So, here he’s taking the nipple out so that we can get that PEX tubing down the hot side, so we can get this draining a little faster.
All right. So, he got the copper off of the top of the water heater, and now he removed the heat trap that was in there. Or did he?

Tito: There we go.

Troy: There it goes. We got the heat trap out of the way. Again, we’re in Eagan, Minnesota putting a water heater, Power Vent water heater, in. It would not drain.
I’ll hold this for you. Did you turn it off? Did you turn it off? I don’t remember if I did or not. I don’t think I did, so.

Tito: Yeah.

Troy: Of course I did. So, this is a little trick with some PEX tubing. Lift it up. Switch. Do you remember how slow the water heater was draining? It was barely draining. There’s so much calcium and deposits that get built up at the bottom water heater, that often they don’t drain.

So, we had before, it was just kind of spitting and sputtering out of here, and it would have taken hours to drain it. Here comes the pump again. Turn down the volume.
Now, look at that. It’s like a fire hose spitting out this thing. This water heater will be drained in no time. So, if you’re not using these… And I don’t get nothing from Milwaukee. I should. If you’re not using these Milwaukee pumps, man, you should because they’re lifesavers. And all we did is go in the hot side, knock out the heat trap that’s in there, and these things draining like a champion.

All right. So, the house had everything we look for. It’s got combustion air. It’s got a well-approved gas valve on it. The venting is solid core venting. That’s a big deal, solid core, cellular core. The ASTM numbers… It’s an ASTM number, but it’ll also start with a letter. Letter F means foam core. It’s no good. The letter D, I don’t know what it means other than it’s good. So, look for your ASTM numbers on your Power Vent water heaters.

We’ll show you what the Bradford White water heater looks like once we are all done. All right. Bradford White water heater in Eagan. We’ve just got to do a little bit of tidying up. The water lines had to move a little bit. The venting had to move a little bit. The gas line had to move a little bit, but it all worked out pretty well.

Hey, plumbers in the Midwest, make sure you’re putting a condensate line on your Power Vent water heaters. They need them. In our cold climate, they will condensate and spit a little water in the wintertime, in which if you don’t run your condensate line right there, then it will drip back down into the motor eventually.

So, Power Vent water heater, Eagan, Minnesota, Champion Plumbing. If you have a Power Vent water heater, gas water heater, electric water heater, or any plumbing needs, give us a call. 651-365-1340, or look us up on the web, www.championplumbing.net. Thank you.