At this home, the builder knew about the concept but put the bollard in the wrong position. The furnace is well-protected but the water heater is a wide open target. Sometimes one bollard will protect both but, when that is the case, it has to be carefully located so a car moving toward either appliance would first hit the bollard.
The typical fix here is installing a second bollard in front of the water heater.
Steven L. Smith
Bellingham WA Home Inspections
I learned something today. I never knew what those were called.
Steve, so true----and depending on the width of the space two bollards might be necessary.
They put those things right in front of where you park the car? Hope they don't have teen-age or senior : ( drivers.
Barbara,
That is why they put them there, careless drivers. That way the appliances, in this case gas, will not be hit and damaged or a gas leak created. You do not have anything like this in garages? It is standard here and a defect if not there. Years back they allowed something more like a tire stop, think grocery store parking lots, but now they want a metal pole in all jurisdictions where I work.
Wow .... With those being gas units I sure would want a pole in front of the Hot Water heater too.
Sean Allen
Steve, we have ours in neat little closets so they don't get seen and banged up. These are so obvious!! And we don't have any of those metal poles. I guess we're just good drivers! LOL
Steven,
Bollards! Sounds like an exclamation of frustration. Try it. Bollards! Any how these are also required if the gas meter is installed to the house with the driveway along the side. See that here more often than in the garage.
Thanks James. Same here but, here, we do not see that very often as the meter tends to be out of the way of the driveway. But when they put the meter there, it needs protection. I would say the arrangement in the photo is the case 90 percent of the time, not the bollard out of place, but the configuration.