Comments on: Episode 89: Exploding Water Heater

By: James Denson

James Denson — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:01:30 +0000

I have not seen the episode, but I was an eyewitness. I was in third grade, I believe. I was sitting in the opposite corner of the cafeteria and our class was very close to taking our school trays back to the front. There was a sudden explosion and I put my head down and covered with my hands. When it was over I looked up and saw the opposite corner of the cafeteria collapsed, teachers and students screaming, and dust everywhere. I believe this may have something to do with my later mild asthma. By the way, my younger brother was outside on the playground where the water heater landed.

By: c

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:20:37 +0000

Does anyone know, or did they mention on the show, why the hot water tank always failed down and rocketed up? Is it designed to do this? Wouldn’t it be safer to have it fail up, rocket down (since these usually sit on a ground or sub-ground level) and have it pushed itself into the earth? I admit I know little of water heaters but this diagram: http://homerepair.about.com/od/plumbingrepair/ss/hwh_tank_gas.htm –doesn’t show any feature that would make it consistently fail down and rocket upwards. Any thoughts?

By: jeff long

jeff long — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:20:21 +0000

did they say how high it went?

By: Katchall

Katchall — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 01:01:19 +0000

Id like to know whether a water heater would explode and burn down a house due to “flammable” fumes in the same room – a storage room.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:57:51 +0000

For the jeans catching on fire, I agree the sanding belt should not be sand paper but something with a high coeficiant of friction but low abrasiveness. it might even catch on fire at the speed they were useing, but if not certianly a higher speed would catch them on fire.
The hot water tank… AWSOME!! I am watching a rerun of it right now!!

By: Gerrie van Deventer

Gerrie van Deventer — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:25:38 +0000

Water Angel.An early warning detection system on your geyser to protect the geyser from exploding.Also a electricity saving device.www.waterangel.co.za

By: Michael H

Michael H — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 07:43:48 +0000

How long did it take for the water heaters to hit the ground after exploding? The 30 gallon went “several hundred” feet and the 52 gallon went “five hundred” feet.

By: Robert Bogden

Robert Bogden — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:56:28 +0000

Hi- Love the show. I would like to see Tori and Grant do more controls (or at least talk about them on the show) for their experiments. For example- with the pig blood/denim jean shrinkage experiment: there should have been a negative control and positive control (tubing running through tub without any possibility for constriction-proves pig blood is not coagulating), and a positive control- another tube that they artificially constrict to show that the pump and blood flow can be constricted (perhaps the pump was compensating for any constriction).

As scientists, we know that proper controls are fundamental to doing good research. Plus you guys are responsible for teaching viewers about how scientists think! :)

Cheers-
Robert

By: Paul Malley

Paul Malley — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:53:10 +0000

Jeans Can Kill You

The one parameter you didn’t appear to control was the water temperature.

You simply left your man in the tub for six
hours letting his skin go wrinkly.

Water temperature is very subjective, the
lady wife does washing up in water that
scalds me.( I mow the lawn)

Put a sample of denim in water at a controlled temperature, then check the ammount it has shrunk, you could also put
a force meter on another sample and check
the force it can exert whilst trying to shrink, then do your tests again.

Friction

Replace the sandpaper on the belt sander
with a lenght of denim.
Increase the speed of the sander by a factor of five or ten.
If gas will burn it, so will friction

By: David

David — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 04:44:03 +0000

In reply to Mike about the pressure not exceeding city pressure, that is mistaken. A pressure reducing valve, check valve or most newer water meters would restrict backflow into the city water supply, which is why most locations require a seperate expansion tank be installed now to give the pressure somewhere to go or it can build and leak at the T&P valve even under normal conditions.