Unventing a vented gas water heater. [View all]

[Kaleva]

First off, I do not recommend anyone actually do this!

As some of you may already know, I have the gas valve on the water heater set to pilot and that alone provides me with enough hot water for my needs although there are times when the water isn't very hot and I have to have the shower or sink faucet all the way to hot.

The pilot light on a storage tank water heater puts out about 800 btu/h which is a ball park average as different sources vary.

Recently, I did some google searching on this and found that many people have been doing the same for some time now so it's nothing new.

A few of these people discussed that if the old time ovens with their standing pilots did not need to be vented, then the water heater with a standing pilot shouldn't be either. As long as the gas valve was left in pilot only! So these folks said that they put in restrictions in the flue or removed the flue altogether so as to reduce the amount of heat going right out the flue rather then heating the water.

So I thought I'd give this a try myself. I removed the 3 inch flue and capped the hole in the chimney with a pop can wrapped in used aluminum foil. I then removed the draft hood and saw that there was a baffle inside the flue section of the water heater itself. Using tin snips, I cut 4 1/2 wide slots in a empty diced tomato can that I had removed the paper from and washed and put that down inside the water heater flue but not all the way so the fumes can escape thru the top of the slots I had cut. The cut slots allowed me to leave the baffle in place. I placed the draft hood back in position but not the flue.

By the following day, I noticed the water was much hotter.

However, as I said in the beginning, I do not recommend that anyone try this. Any gas appliance that is designed to be vented should be properly vented.