Why is our new water heater makeing a ticking sound?
Those ticking noises are likely just the sounds of your &quot;heat traps&quot;, one way valves that are used to save energy by not allowing heat from your water to migrate into the pipes, cool off and sink back down to require heating again. Heat traps are often installed as nipples on the cold and hot water lines, so you may not even realize that's what they are. The sound is perfectly normal.
The first image is actually kind of exaggerated, they often look like normal nipples. as in the 2nd image.