Triangle Tube Not Standing by Warranty?

Javelin

Heating Pros, I had a TT Smart indirect water heater for 3-4 years, and then it started a small drip at the T&P relief valve. I added a bunch of photos to this forum of what appeared to be a small pin-hole lead in the female stem that comes out of the tank. Thought it was under warranty, took pictures, supply house agreed that to swap it out under warranty, but now (3 months later) they are saying that it was a result of the T&P valve being over tightened which caused the leak. It used to look like just a pin hole, but the supply house just sent me a new photo of it where it's been sitting for a couple of months, and it definitely is more a crack from the upper edge.

My question is , is this normal? Does this happen often? Shouldn't the nipple/stem be stronger than this? On this tank, the nipple is welded to the inside tank apparently, aren't these nipples usually just that - so they can be replaced if they have a leak?

Do I have any other recourse to make this a warranty claim?

Thank you all in advance.

Jay

SWEI

Looks like overtightening to me as well. I suspect the installer chose not to use the Loctite TT provided with the tank and instead doped it up and followed the usual "if three turns is good, then five turns is better" method of sealing joints.

Paul48

Do you have a new unit in place? If so, send them a copy of the picture, again, and tell them to "fan ice". The nipple shows a pin-hole defect......they cracked it.

hot_rod

It is not uncommon to see stainless over-tightened. It can be a tough threaded connection to seal as the threads gaul (sp)

It does look like an over tightened crack, even with the rough looking socket.

We are seeing more and more warranty refusals when the problem is obvious water quality induced. Both indirect tanks and boilers.

Paul48

Look at "his" original photo, before the supply house got their hands on it. You can see the pin-holes in that whole area of pipe. The wet area was round, not emanating from the end of the nipple. Look at the threads....bad nipple, they bored over-sized to make it easier to tap. The shame of it is, they are cheating him, and will get away with it.

Javelin

Just wanted to post a follow-up... Triangle Tube DID end up replacing this under warranty. As Paul said, there was an obvious leak before the crack at the top even formed, so they are back on my good side

Interesting note - that female coupling that is welded to the tank that had the pinholes has now been replaced with a MALE fitting coming out of the tank. I'm guessing I wasn't the only one with a problem with the old design

Thanks as always for all your help.. always learning!

ratio

It's good to hear a positive resolution to this kind of thing.

Solid_Fuel_Man

Thank you for following up! It really is great when someone take the time to follow up on what's happened. Helps us all sharpen our minds and pencils. As well as influence what we install in the future for our customer base.

Taylor