water heater question

To the OP:
The LP gas system has to be turned on to feed gas to every gas appliance. With a one bottle system, just turn on the valve at the tank. For a two tank system, turn on both valves, and the regulator will only take gas from the one bottle where a pointer switch is pointing to. After that tank empties, the green in the little window will turn red, and the regulator will start to take gas from the other tank. Turn the switch to the other tank, the red will turn back to green, and then take the emoty tank for refill.

To answer your question, the water heater must have water in it before the burner is activated.

However, each appliance has its own ignition system, so you can operate each appliance separately of each other. You can run the furnace, and the refrigerator, for example, without also operating the water heater.

DrewE wrote:

352 wrote:
Why do you want to heat hot water? I will never understand that

Surely you can figure out that the hot water heater is the heater for the hot water system, as opposed to a heater for some other purpose. Yes, it is a water heater, that makes cold water into hot water. The grammar is just fine and more logical than many things in English.

You might as well ask why the steering wheel steers the steering wheels (which steer the vehicle), or why rotating the tires involves swapping them but not spinning them about their axes, or why a galvanized nut is made of galvanized metal but a wire not isn't really made of wire and a lug nut isn't made out of lugs. (And yes, I do know that a wire nut has a spring inside, which arguably could be considered wire, but such a spring by itself would hardly be a wire nut.) You might also note that a fuel filter makes for cleaner fuel, and a water filter makes for cleaner water, but a sediment filter doesn't make clean sediment.

What's more, it may be that the original poster's water heater was at one point stolen or exposed to radioactivity.

:)

352 wrote:
Why do you want to heat hot water? I will never understand that

Surely you can figure out that the hot water heater is the heater for the hot water system, as opposed to a heater for some other purpose. Yes, it is a water heater, that makes cold water into hot water. The grammar is just fine and more logical than many things in English.

You might as well ask why the steering wheel steers the steering wheels (which steer the vehicle), or why rotating the tires involves swapping them but not spinning them about their axes, or why a galvanized nut is made of galvanized metal but a wire not isn't really made of wire and a lug nut isn't made out of lugs. (And yes, I do know that a wire nut has a spring inside, which arguably could be considered wire, but such a spring by itself would hardly be a wire nut.) You might also note that a fuel filter makes for cleaner fuel, and a water filter makes for cleaner water, but a sediment filter doesn't make clean sediment.

What's more, it may be that the original poster's water heater was at one point stolen or exposed to radioactivity.

The OP is new.
I think what he is saying is that the LP system is manual. He has a pilot for the water heater, refer and furnace run off propane.
Same as what you wrote in second paragraph, tatest

Are you sure you have to light the water heater pilot for the other gas appliances to work?

That would be unusual. Even when the appliances were all manual control, each piece (range, furnace, fridge) had its own pilot light. Most often today, only the water heater and oven have pilots, everything else is spark ignition.

But yes, you do need to have water in the water heater if you are going to ignite it. Otherwise it can overheat, as the controls and protective devices are designed to measure water temperature.

352 wrote:
Why do you want to heat hot water? I will never understand that

What I will never understand is ridiculous replies such as this. Seriously? I mean, really?

It's a blending of "water heater" and "hot water tank."

352 wrote:
Why do you want to heat hot water? I will never understand that

The hot water heater police strike again.

352 wrote:
Why do you want to heat hot water? I will never understand that

Well, given that it's constantly and slowly cooling off, it does need to be heated up from hot-but-not-hot-enough back to hot-enough from time to time.

Make sense? ;)

You need to open water faucet valves to get the water to fill the water heater and the lines. It will not fill without turning on faucets to purge the air out.