[villagetinker]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

This morning, I heard a squealing noise coming from the garage. It was one of my battery-operated water alarms. The expansion tank on my water heater had a small leak and water was dripping into the overflow pan. I have 8 of these alarms that cost less than 10 dollars each on Amazon. That is the third time that I prevented a potential disaster with the alarms. I highly recommend using some type of water alarm system in your house. There are more expensive systems that are wired or connected to wifi, but the battery type are effective and very easy to install.

By the way, I called Mike Scott Plumbing at 8 AM and they had the expansion tank replaced by 10:15 AM. The cost was $250, but the next time I will do it myself because it was extremely easy to install. You just screw it onto the water heater. No draining or tools required.

You are correct about this being a simple repair, however you do need to precharge the expansion tank to the proper pressure typically around 60 PSI, and these typically last 5 to 7 years.