Hot Water Heater Trouble Shooting

[moniss]

4. Your water pressure should have nothing to do with

the temperature. Your burner is only supposed to kick in based on temperature in the tank. The probe in the tank and the temp sensor work together. Remember I said the pressure "should" have nothing to do with it. But there could be some fluke situation where the probe going into the tank has been damaged and so the sensor is calling for the burner to fire and probably stay on more than needed. I would be very doubtful that just reducing pressure is going to solve your problem. The probe(s) need to be checked for damage and if undamaged then your sensor(s) might be bad. You could also just have had a probe failure unrelated to anything to do with the pressure. I would recommend a plumber at this point because you don't want to have this "running wild" condition and risk a guest or child getting scalded and checking the probe/sensor/thermostat is more than most average DYI folks should really get into unless you just want to wholesale replace everything to be sure. But your probe is supposed to sense the heat and when the sensor part of the system sees it as meeting the thermostat setting it is supposed to shut down. That's the deal and reversed for firing up the burner. You could have a stray electrical issue with the system in which the signal to shut down the burner is affected also. Several possibilities but a plumber will put the test equipment on it and tell you quickly.