Mythbusters Water Heater Explosion

The MythBusters set up a three-tier scaffold to simulate a two-story house. The lowest level housed the 52 US gallon (200 L) water heater, second level contained a simulated living room, and on top was a roof built to standard California building codes. The resulting explosion from the water heater did cause it to shoot through the living room floor and the roof. It was deemed plausible because, unlike the original myth, researchers did not uncover any documented events of water heater explosions in two-story houses.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Mythbusters
• water
• heater
• explosion
• 2 story
• evolution
• ansa
• plumbing
• safety

[reteip9]

I can see the Libyan rebels weaponising this

[Ammondude]

The amazing part is how clean the trajectory of the rocket is...

[gfduoighdsfpogih]

I love how it shot all the way through the floor of the first floor and from there through the roof!

[jhelliot1]

@christianz2010 They simulated a situation where the thermostat was "stuck on" or continuously heating the water and they plugged the temperature and pressure relief valve port. Normally, the T&P valve opens to relieve the tank of excessive pressure and temperature, but the valve can stick shut allowing extreme amounts of pressure to build inside the tank until kaboom. To prevent this, it is not a bad idea to open and shut the T&P valve a few times a year to make sure it works.

[zonezigger]

@rocker22496 when originally testing the myth, the circumstances they came up with was that both the safety mechanism you mentioned and another mechanism were for some reason disabled.

[christianz2010]

How did this happened so I can avoid it? today we are putting a new one on

[rocker22496]

There is now a safety mechanism built into modern water heaters which prevents the psi from reaching anything over 150psi..... on a less serious note that was one of the coolest things I've ever seen I would just hate to be that mannequin who was sprayed with 210 degree water.

[dogbyte555]

It looks more like a single story house with a basement to me, unless the living room is on the second floor.

[elhefe001]

I wonder how high it went??



[roblet1783]

@ThePwnSho Thanks for your reply, i've recently found out that water pressure is higher at the lowest point of a system.

[ThePwnSho]

@roblet1783 Pressure is the same on all the walls of the water heater, it explodes on the bottom because the wall is weaker.

[roblet1783]

Why is all the pressure going downwards? Why didn't the heater just explode?