Draining Hot Water Heaters

[Muggles]

I'm not sure about any shutter, but it's possible he could have done that. I was just glad the gas smell stopped.

[Stormin Mormon]

|| || [christmas presents]

[SeaNymph]

I don't remember, but if someone had asked, I would have told them. It's actually an electric Marathon.

[Micky]

FWIW, the last time I bought a Sears water heater, I opened the box and the water inlet or outlet was at a small angle. and the top of the WH, the sheet metal, was dented. They must have put something heavy on box.

My ex-gf said to take it back, but that would all be on me. Dragging it up the stairs, having to drive 3 miles, wait around, 3 miles back. (I put it on the back of my LeBaron convertible, so that requires tying in on both going and coming.)

Anyhow, i hooked it up and it's been fine for 5 years now.

Of course it's Sears, which uses a sheet of vinyl and not actual glass.

[Tony Hwang]

Remember old cars with choke? Cold engine uses more gasoline. Same idea. NG when burning normally flame tips look blue in color. Yellowish color means poor combustion due to lack of fresh air or too much gas. In the case of car you can smell gasoline or black smoke(unburned gasoline) out of tail pipe. Also gas pressure feeding water heater or furnace have to be correct. Your gas meter has a pressure regulator. Your gas BBQ has a pressure regulator, etc. My house is built on R2000 specs back then. If I don't bring in outside fresh air, furnace and water heater will be starving for combustion air causing danger of CO level rising indoor.

[Tony Hwang]

I pass a tank with plastic drain valve. After not having hot water over night they just replaced one with Bradford White 50 Gal. one this morning. For some reason most of new tanks are tall ones now. Not many short ones around. Had to cut off copper pipes to accommodate new one.

[Muggles]

Ok I understand. Thanks!

[21blackswan]

i currently have an A.O Smith,

and i think it works fine, just like a real water heater

marc

[clare]

Sears doesn't make their own water heaters. The last sears I installed was a white something-or-other with a sears sticker on it.

[Micky]

These seem identical to the one by AOSmith that came with the house. FWIW I did mention that brand in an earlier post.

[clare]

The one I installed in the neighbour's house about 15 years ago was Bradford White with the sears name. A few years earlier they were GSW. It all depends who responds to the supply tenders, with what feature list and cost.

[Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney]

take the anode out? Takes serious muscle. It doesn't distort the tank. Obviously the fittings are designed to take a load.

down tight, holding a plate and several thousand gallons (biggest tank we have at work is 420,000 gallons). If the glass coating can tolerate that, a homeowner with an 8 inch crescent isn't even noise.

closing. But if I started with a new tank I wouldn't be afraid to put a decent valve on it.

Last water heater I bought was 3-4 years ago, one of Sears' brands from Orchard Supply Hardware, which was a subsidiary of Sears now closed. There was a problem starting it up. Because it was brand new, I didn't pay much attention and Sears sent a tech out. He order a new electrical assy (can't even remember what that was) and then came back and installed it all under warranty. Since then it has run perfectly. I check it from time to time, flame color, etc. and not problems so far knock on wood.

[>>>Ashton Crusher]

Perhaps it depends on the water quality where you live. When I kept the temperature set at "normal" there would be so much sediment after a year that water would not drain from the drain. I would have to use a screwdriver and jam it up into the drain and break up the sediment to get the water flowing. Then put the hose on, let it drain for a couple minutes, then it would plug with sediment again and I'd have to disconnect the hose, poke it with the screwdriver again and do that a dozen or more times. With electric water heaters I have more then once had the bottom electrode burn out due to the sediment building up over it and preventing enough water to get to it to keep it from boiling off the water and then burning up and blowing the fuse. I had one where I almost couldn't get the electrode out it was so badly trapped with sediment.

After that happening a few times I tried to get to draining them each year and discovered it was NOT a 10 minute job but the arduous task I described. That was when I started turning the temp down and just ignoring draining them and found they lasted at least 10 years.

So my final answer Alex is to set the temp at 125 and ignore it till it starts to leak, probably between year 10 and 15.

[Micky]

BTW, my last two WH, maybe all 3, do have the thing that swirls the water when fresh water enters, but I'm not sure if or how that lessens sediment, despite the vendor's claims. The plastic input tube goes almost to the bottom of the WH and then goes to the outside and turns to be parallel to the outside of the circle.

How would that lessen sediment.

[clare]

It causes the water to swirl whenever it enters, keeping sediment from "settling" so you don't get an accumulation in the bottom. They work. (turbulator tube)

[Stormin Mormon]

The sediment is more likely to go out the hot water faucet, instead of stay in the tank.

[Ed Pawlowski]

It keeps it in suspension and flows out when you use water

[gfretwell]

In a place with significant amounts of calcium in the water, the effect is negligible. The stuff falls out of suspension far faster than the water is used. It may not cake up as bad but it is still there. Water heaters are a 6-10 year thing and you chuck them. A water softener helps but it is not a panacea.