| 摘要 |
A water heater is provided with a specially designed molded bottom pad/foam dam member which is placed in its bottom pan prior to placing botto m annular portions of the water heater tank and its outwardly spaced jacket structure into the bottom pan. The pad/dam member functions to automatically center the tan k relative to its jacket structure, and to prevent leakage past the bottom pan of liquid foam insulation injected into the tank/jacket annulus after bottom end portions of the tank and jacket are secured within the bottom pan. The top side of the pad/d am member has three concentric annular grooves formed therein. The outermost first groove receives an annular bottom end portion of the jacket, while a second groove receives an annular bottom end portion of the tank. The provision of the thi rd groove permits the same pad/dam member to be alternatively used with a water heater having a different tank diameter to thereby improve the manufacturing efficiency of a line of differently sized water heaters. When a second water heater having a differe nt tank diameter is used with the bottom pad/foam dam member, annular bottom edge portions of the second water heater's jacket and tank portions are respectively received in the first and third top side grooves in the pad/dam member.
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