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I have a bad leak in my bathtub faucet. The hot handle. I have a plumber coming but not until the upcoming week. I turned off the water supply to the electric hot water heater and it quit leaking.

My question is, is it safe to leave it off, until I get the leak fixed? I obviously won’t have hot water until then, and that’s fine, but it quits leaking while I wait.

I don’t know about the pressure in the tank and all that stuff. Do I need to shut the breaker on the wall off for the heater? Turn the temperature down so it doesn’t heat the tank as much? Just wondering these things so it doesn’t blow up or anything lol, or doesn’t cause it any harm. It’s fairly new (2 years old). Rheem.

I just don’t want to mess anything up, and I want it to stop leaking until the plumber gets here this week. It may need to be off for a few days.

Any help would be appreciated.

Jeff
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1 Answers1

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Turn off the breaker!

If sufficient water leaks out or is used to expose an element (usually the upper, until it's drained a great deal) the element will fry in seconds if it turns on without water around it.

You may think your plumbing setup won't allow that to happen, but it's really never safe to have the power on with the water off, and it's always safe to have the power off, so turn the power off.

Ecnerwal
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