New water heater

[TucsonMTB]

It is now a little more than eleven (11) years since construction of our house reached completion.

So, yeah, the original water heater started leaking. It was not a catastrophic failure, but it definitely needed attention soon.

Those things weigh more than 160 pounds and I do not own a truck. So, I contacted a handyman that I like personally to help install a new one.

To my surprise, Kevin proposed a fixed $175, all inclusive, installation rate. To top it off, he offered to supply a RUUD brand, water heater at about half the cost of the Rheem brand I planned to buy from Home Depot. RUUD is manufactured by Rheem as their professional trade line and seems to be of better quality than most of the Rheem models that Home Depot offers for retail sales.

The only bad news is that the same capacity RUUD brand water heater is several inches larger in each dimension than the original, builder-supplied, water heater. It is also larger than the comparable Rheem models that Home Depot offers. This made fitting the chimney duct work a genuine pain.

The installation is now complete and I am pleased with the results, but it took twice as long as either Kevin or I expected.

I mention today's adventure partly because Kevin was told by his supplier that some new energy saving regulations will be hitting next year that will significantly increase the costs of these essential parts of comfortable life. If yours is close to needing replacement, it might be worth jumping on now.

Hot showers are nice . . .

 

[dmar]

Ruud have always been a top brand for hot water heaters. The HWHs carried in the big box stores are generally junk/lesser quality than supply house... You'll get good service out of that unit.

The high efficiency units are definitely high dollar, and will eventually be unavoidable...

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

So many new"safety" features have been total failures and recalled! I had a crew of 5 men. They replaced 2-3 tanks a week in about 600 apartment spread all over town. None had ever heard of replacing the control valve. When i took over the crew the accounting office wanted to know why we were buying about half the water tanks, when I said we could repair that many they got nasty and said the tanks would just die later on. I said that was true, but replacement tanks will die also and the the interest on the money for the years in between was the savings. They couldn't understand what I was talking about. The Accounting department didn't think saving tax money was important. Ivan

 

[rwsmith]

Plumbing....my God.....

I've replumbed about everything in the house in the last few months.

Those flexible connector hoses come in handy when the new water heater isn't quite the same as the old one.

 

[johngalt]

11 years is a short life. My parents replaced theirs this spring, it had been installed in 89. One I had in an old apartment let go (catastrophic, water gushing out), it was the original and probably pushing 25 years old.

My parents had to replace their 40 yer old dishwasher. The new 'energy saver' models don't use enough water and don't get hot enough to dry the dishes.

 

[Grjfer]

Marathon. Marathon Water Heaters

 

[williamlayton]

As a storage unit for water, 11 years is not long.
As a unit for producing hot water economically and keeping the water at the correct setting , it is not a short life.
Change out things before you have to do it in a hurry.
Blessings

 

[Nevada Ed]

Its life depends a LOT on the type of water that goes through it.................chemicals and silt will kill a heater early in its life,
if it is not flushed out every two years, if possible.

Also check for the energy savings on a unit..........
they should have a EF of .960 at the lowest and should have at least a 8 year warranty. $278 for a 30 gal. model for two people as a starting point for the standard models, in my area.

I try to go to the local mom and pop stores before going to the large outlet stores............ you can sometimes dicker up a good deal.

 

[SmokeStack Lightning]

My natural gas water heater just had it's 20th burfday.

Kinda hard to believe too, cuz it came hooked up with my double wide trailer which came down the highway for about 120 miles.

 

[Snapping Twig]

I bought a Whirlpool 50 gal in July of '04.

Recall sent me a replacement burner assembly and that was a needed upgrade. Now it works like a charm.

I have a filtering water panel on the main line going into my house, so no debris or particulate has ever made its way into it.

I finally flushed it for the first time ever a couple months ago. Had a lot of brown water at the bottom. I filled it 1/4 way and flushed it a few times and overall I am very happy with it.

 

[TucsonMTB]

One of the good things about getting old is that when this water heater reaches the end of its life, I may not have to deal with it.

Lots of things look like less of a problem when you can take the short view in good conscience.

 

[Marshwheeling]

My water heater was old when I moved into this house nearly twenty years ago. I suppose I will have to replace it soon. I don't look forward to lugging it up the basement stairs, or to plumbing in a new one.

I expect it will be a little more work than replacing the blower motor on my furnace, a job I had to do last month. The furnace was down for almost a week while I sourced a motor for the very out-of-date furnace. (I finally found it the first place I should have looked, on the shelf at Fleet Farm.) Installation should have taken about an hour, but naturally, with all the inevitable little roadblocks that attend any mechanical project, it took up most of a day.

 

[amazingflapjack]

We have an electric Rudd that we have had maybe 15 years, and it works great. When it was installed, we put it up on one of those stands that are a couple feet high, like you sometimes see with gas heaters. That has eliminated much of the usual corrosion that accumulates on those set on concrete floors. I also drain mine every few years, and change the bottom heating element when needed. That seems to give them a longer life.

 

[J. R. WEEMS]

We are all elect. here. Mine started going last spring. Put it off as long as I could then #1 son down the street helped me. If you don't want to do a lot of pipe work you had best pay attention to the size of the old one and to what is available. Mine was a breeze more or less. Hope this one last 19 years like the orginial did.

 

[wundudnee]

I was in Alabama last March when my wife called me to tell me our water heater had died. My son was having hip replacement surgery and I was there for a month to feed his cattle and do his chores. I live in NE Kansas and couldn't get home to change it out, so I told my wife to just go ahead and call a reputable plumber and to just pay the price. She called a well known plumber and they replaced our propane burner 50 gallon heater. The replacement heater was an exact fit with no plumbing changes needed.

The bill, $2,000.00! I looked on the internet and the highest priced propane heater delivered was $800.00, and the one installed wasn't near as good quality. That left $1,200.00 for a two hour install.

When I got home I did call the plumber and told him that he severely ripped us off. I did get him to knock off $200.00 from the bill. He said he hoped that I was happy, I told him I was so happy I would tell all my friends about him.

 

[chaparrito]

You guys who think 11 years isn't a long life for a water heater don't live in Arizona. Our water eats through titanium.

 

[medxam]

I have (had) two large gas boilers as I heat this big old house with hot water. Last summer, one of them sprung a leak so we just shut it off, since the other one was making all of the hot water I needed. I decided that I would wait until cooler weather to replace it. Several weeks ago the other one sprung a leak so we ordered two new ones. Took two weeks for them to arrive. The guys came Friday to install them and they had shipped the wrong units! It is cold, even here in sunny Eastern NC, and these electric space heaters just can't keep up, except in my bedroom! My house is 22 years old and this is the second replacement and I am on a good county wide water system. Why does the water eat them up so quickly? Over $4000.00 bucks for the job, money that I was saving up for a RM!

medxam

 

[TucsonMTB]

I was in Alabama last March when my wife called me to tell me our water heater had died.
. . .
The replacement heater was an exact fit with no plumbing changes needed.

The bill, $2,000.00!
. . .
I did get him to knock off $200.00 from the bill. He said he hoped that I was happy, I told him I was so happy I would tell all my friends about him.

You, sir, are a quick wit!

This may be a nation wide pattern. Before deciding to install the RUUD water heater myself, the plan was to buy a similar $639 Rheem model at Home Depot and let their installer (Delta Mechanical) do the work. Their all inclusive price quote was $1456.

 

[Frank237]

After replacing out 3rd heater in less than 20 years (lots of minerals in our water) I went with an "on demand" RINAII brand. Gave me some extra space in a corner of the basement and all the hot water we want.