TL;DR
A dip tube is the plastic pipe inside a tank water heater that carries incoming cold water from the inlet at the top down to the bottom, where the burner or lower element heats it, keeping the cold from mixing with the hot water being drawn off above. When one cracks or crumbles, arriving cold water short-circuits straight across the top to the outlet, and showers turn lukewarm minutes in even though the tank below is full of hot water.
What it means
A dip tube is the plastic pipe inside a tank water heater that carries incoming cold water from the inlet at the top down to the bottom, where the burner or lower element heats it, keeping the cold from mixing with the hot water being drawn off above. When one cracks or crumbles, arriving cold water short-circuits straight across the top to the outlet, and showers turn lukewarm minutes in even though the tank below is full of hot water. Flecks of white plastic in faucet aerators, infamous in heaters from the mid-1990s, are the classic confirming clue.
Where it sits in the glossary
Dip tube is part of the Trade jargon group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.
Why Ohio homeowners should know it
This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.
ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.
ProFix tools that touch this term
See also
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