Truma ultra store water heater

[Mac-man]

I have a tiny pinhole leak in the water tank where the lid is welded, the hole is in the weld on the top of tank. It appears to me that the leak has always been there on my 2010 caravan and as it was so minute we hardly noticed it but now having investigated and found the problem I would like to know can it be repaired? Not wanting to replace the entire water heater.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Mac,

The recommended repair would be a replacement tank, which are available, but it would be wise to have the replacement carried out by a competent fitter, as it almost certainly require the heater to be removed from the caravan, which means breaking a gas joint.

You say you believe the hole has "Always been there", I wonder how you have come to that conclusion.

However if that is the case, then as the caravan is less than 6 years old, and if you can prove the fault was present at your point of purchase then you might get some help from your supplier under the Sale of Goods Act.

Alternatively if it were mine, depending on the likely reason for the hole (is it corrosion or just a poor weld?) might consider blocking the hole using a two part epoxy glue. If it is corrosion then I would be concerned there may be weaknesses elsewhere which are likely to fail in the near future, in which case I would investigate the replacement tank solution, or a complete heater depending on costs.

 

[Mac-man]

Thanks for the advice John, we have hardly used the water heater as we holiday in France mainly & use site facilities. We bought the caravan when it was 1 years old & tried everything out. During 4 years of owning the van we have used the water heater twice & both times we have noticed a tiny drop of water below the tank. My first thought was that it was the breather valve which at the time was kinked, we sorted that. This year while away we decided to use the water heater due to the lack of hot water on a campsite then found we still had the leak. On returning home we decided to investigate further & took the top cover off and found this tiny leak which is almost nothing when cold water used only but when water heater was on it became much more, we realised then that from the very first time we used the hot water the problem had always been there, on hind sight we should have investigated further then at the time.

 

[saint-spoon]

It is awkward to offer advice without inspecting the equipment personally. I am a marine engineer by trade and have done plenty of pipe repairs in my time. As Prof has suggested there are proprietary two part epoxy putties that can be used, companies such as Skrew fix and t00l station sell them. I have the SF catalogue next to me and it is under “plumbers epoxy aqua repair”. I used this stuff to repair a joint under a radiator valve that unexpectedly started leaking quite heavily a few years back. It held for over a year until I changed the radiators and all the associated fittings. As a rough guess the pressures and temperatures involved will be in a similar ball park. I can only suggest that if it can’t be changed under warranty and that the alternative is pay for a new one yourself it may be worth a punt because the putty only costs just over three quid. It will certainly act as a temporary repair and if it stops the leak then all is well; if it doesn’t well it has cost £3. One word of caution, if the tank is very heavily corroded then maybe this small leak is a warning that a bigger failure may be on the cards, plugging it may lead to a much bigger one in the future.

 

[ProfJohnL]

...... As a rough guess the pressures and temperatures involved will be in a similar ball park. ...........

Saint spoon may be right,

The temperature should not exceed 70C and the pressure should not exceed 1.3Bar (20psi). Neither of these is unreasonably high so two part pipe repair compounds should do fine.