Water heater repair in Purcellville.

The Town’s own water FAQ says that a home in Purcellville may use more water than you expect, and the cause it names is the high pressure in the Town system. High pressure is also what a water heater feels. Water that heats up expands, and with nowhere to go in a closed system it pushes pressure higher still. The relief valve on the side of the tank is there to let that out, and in a high-pressure house it will start to weep or spit. The valve is doing its job, and the fix is usually at the pressure, not the valve alone.

Half the owners here heat with electricity and a third with propane, and only about one in twenty uses natural gas. A tank on a Town line is therefore most likely electric, with propane close behind. A weeping relief valve on either is a reason to call, because a valve that has been dripping for months can crust over and stop opening when it matters.

The Town treats water from the J.T. Hirst Reservoir and from wells, and it doesn’t publish a hardness figure, so we won’t quote one. What we can say is that a tank in an older house on the town’s original grid has had a lot of years of whatever is in the water, and the bottom of it tells the story.

Purcellville has grown, with half the owner homes built since 2000 and about two in ten of them townhouses. In a townhouse the tank is usually in a closet or a garage corner with a short vent run. In the older detached houses it’s in a cellar. Either way we look at the valve, the pressure and the tank together.