Rheem tank gas hot water heater weird flame / sounds / smells [video]

[spdctrl]

Hi everyone,

New to the forum, pleased to be here!

Just bought a new (to me) house. Rheem hot water heater manufactured in 2016 makes weird noises (that sounds like something is perhaps dripping on the burner) which seems to cause the burner flame to change color.

Video here (turn up the volume to hear the odd noises):

Any idea what it could be? Should it be replaced?

For background, I turned off and drained the heater. No particulates came out, which I'm guessing is due in part to the water softener system, as here in Austin, there is a lot of dissolved limestone that makes its way to the tank hot water heaters, generally speaking.

I turned the water back on but didn't restart the pilot light since I'm not yet living there fulltime. Decided to start up the pilot light today and get it heating again, which is when I ran into the weird noises / sounds / smells.

Any advice is most appreciated!

-Justin

 

[spdctrl]

Here's a link to when the issue starts happening, if you don't care to watch from burner start-up:

 

[breplum]

When a water heater is lit up from cold, there can be serious condensation generated and likely that is what is happening.
Once hot/warm, the condensation stops and should be normal.
Avg. life of a tank water heater varies a lot. All have 6 year pro-rated tank warranty.

 

[Twowaxhack]

That’s condensation dripping onto the burner.

nothing you can really do about it.

 

[spdctrl]

Thanks so much, @breplum, @Twowaxhack !

It makes sense that it would be condensation, I just didn't know condensation would cause the flame to go crazy orange like that!

May I ask, what about start-from-cold smells? I definitely smelled something that was not just water vapor. It seemed somewhat strong. I put a CO detector in the closet just to make sure it wasn't deadly (it didn't detect).