No matter the time of year, one essential appliance you’ll always need running in your home is the water heater. If your house is like most, you use a storage tank water heater to supply your family with the hot water that it needs throughout the day for cooking, cleaning, showering, and bathing. To help ensure that you don’t run into a sudden system breakdown that will leave your household with only cold water, keep a close watch for warning signs from the water heater that something is wrong with it. We’ve listed a few of the more common signs below.

Water discoloration

When you turn on the hot water taps in your house, do you see a rusty discoloration in the water, sort of like what you might expect after you’ve been away from your home on vacation? This often indicates corrosion in the system, or possibly excess sediment in the tank.

A loss of hot water volume

Your water heater goes from supplying your house with enough hot water each day to running out early, leaving some people in the morning with cold showers. If this happens gradually, it usually means the water heater is getting old. But if this occurs suddenly, it might be due to a broken dip tube.

The water won’t get warm enough

Is the hot water just not hot, merely lukewarm? Then the water heater may be suffering from problems with its burners or heating elements.

Rumbling sounds from the tank

Don’t panic when you hear this sound: it’s unlikely that your water heater is going to burst. But you do need to be concerned, since this could be a sign of too much sediment, limescale, or other problems that lead to the water overheating.

Should you detect any of these above issues, don’t ignore them—and don’t make attempts to fix the problem yourself. Instead, pick up the phone and make a call to technicians who know what to do and will get the repair job done fast so you won’t lose your supply of hot water.

Bud Matthews Services offers repairs for tank water heaters—and other models as well—in Durham, NC.