I couldn’t find any documentation for deaths by water heater explosions. I found a fairly recent explosion in Seattle that injured four people, three not serious and the fourth with 2nd-degree burns. Didn’t find any deaths by scalding either. However, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of deaths by carbon monoxide. D
Here’s a water heater explosion that Jerry Peck arranged several years ago:
About Homes
We actually had two water heater explosions here in San Diego County in 2003, but none since then. I had the opportunity to see one. The house had been a 3,700-SF two-story house but was reduced to 1,700-SF. The tank was found a half mile away in a strip mall parking lot. No injuries to anyone in either explosion.
Here’s a very good web site on carbon monoxide deaths:
About Homes
It gets updated on a regular basis as information on deaths, injuries, near deaths, etc., due to carbon monoxide pour into them.
I’ve never found more than three water heaters at a house, and that house was 15,700 SF. However, that same house had eight furnaces, five in the attics, one in the garage, and two in interior utility closets, one in a utility closet outside the master bedroom. And yet we still don’t require carbon monoxide detectors/alarms in our homes. How stupid can we be.
I regularly find two or three furnaces in 3,000-5,000 SF homes that only have one water heater.
I’ll stick with furnaces as the most dangerous appliance due to location; the fact that carbon monoxide is odorless, tasteless, and invisible; the fact that carbon monoxide kills and injures many, many, many more people than hot water or water heater explosions do; and the fact that the water heater at least has a TPR valve for some sort of safety–what does the furnace have?
Alas, they both are dangerous, but I’d probably choose electricity as the second most dangerous “appliance” in our homes, again basically because it is odorless, tasteless, and invisible.
I really don’t like things that are odorless, tasteless, and invisible. Hot water I can handle.