Water Heaters - Leaky water pipe?

Pardon me for sounding like a total woman.

The long pipe that runs down the side of the water heater - connects to the pressure valve if I'm not mistaken. Every time we use the shower, washer, or dishwasher it discharges and then leaks.

When we first moved into this apt I had to have the maintenance man out because the water heater kept tripping it's breaker. I believe he replaced the elements in it. Filled the heater back up and it immediatly started to trip the valve. So he did something to that - I'm not clear on what. Even after this it kept discharging. We put a pan under it.

Then we lost our hot water. Maintenance guy came out again. Replaced the thermastat I believe.

So it's still discharging.

Call them again. Brainiac comes out and instead of fixing the real problem he connects a hose to the end of the pipe and runs it into the drain for the AC.

We've got good hot water, but not great water pressure upstairs in the shower (heater is downstairs) plus our upstairs toilet doesn't flush as well as I think it should. At first I thought this was just an upstairs gravity situation, but now I'm wondering if it's not connected to the valve issue?

If it is just gravity, does anyone have any ideas as to why it keeps draining? The heater at home never did this.

I'm peeved at our maintenance guy and ready to call a real plumber and send the realtor the bill.

Sorry for the novel - any suggestions?

Welcome to the forums! that's ok, I'm married to one. I never tell her how I fix things. That way she always needs me. The Temperature and Pressure Valve (T&P to impress your friends) should not leak, period. If it is leaking it is because of high temperature, or high pressure (thus the name). The other reason is "brainiac" as you called him/her may have lodged something in it for some reason only known to him. Otherwise why doesn't he fix it? It is too easy a fix. After changing all the working parts on the heater and you still have problems, I would say it is time to replace the heater.

1) A malfunctioning water heater / TPRV is a serious hazard - there is a small but real chance this:

http://www.safteng.net/Accident%20Photos/Hot%20Water%20heater%20explosion.htm

will happen.

and that was a little 5 gal water heater - about the size of the bottle on an office water cooler.

Note the sequence of events: a WH kept tripping breakers, a maintenance person not fully qualified to service the unit attempted to fix it, eventually a damaged TPRV failed to relieve the pressure, the result is visible in the pictures.

Don't want to unnecessarily alarm you, but you can see the parallels - you have several similar factors in play in your situation, including a valve which is either bleeding off excessive pressure or is defective.

The solution is to get some one who understands how to service the heater out there, stat, to repair or replace the WH as required. If the responsible parties are not responsive, I'd call the local building department.

Yeah, I saw that on Mythbusters.

I'm going to call them first thing Monday morning and tell them I'd really feel more comfortable if we had a qualified plumber out here to look at it.