Rheem Home Depot quality same as plumbing supply house?

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g20zoom

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In the past...I heard people say the Home Depot GE heaters(rebadged Rheem/Rudd) were the same as the supply house ones...but when I dug around, some plumbers said the supply house ones weight quite a bit more. So one would think the supply house ones were much thicker tanks.

Now that HD has switched over directly to the Rheem brand, are these the same ones as the supply houses?
ie same thickness of tanks, same anode rods, etc?

What do you guys know?

I'm about to replace a 50 gallon natural gas one soon....as I have a 7 year old GE one(previous owner) and since the pilot went out for no reason recently I'm thinking I better replace it soon. It did relight after several tries but the hot water flex line just leaked too, and the hot water circ line leaked 2x in the past year, so it's a sign I should just replace it all!
 

hj

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The tanks are exactly the same, although, the HD ones may NOT undergo a final inspection, which means you are the final inspector and if you get a bad one, YOU have to disconnect it and return it.
 

Terry

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The Rheem that I buy comes with a brass drain.
The Rheem at Home Depot comes with a plastic drain.
That's the first thing I noticed.
 

Gary Swart

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Many of us advice replacing the drain with a 1/4 turn. Add a hose adapter and draining the tank is easy.
 

Master Plumber Mark

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They are not too bad except they use a lighter weight and more problematic
honeywell plastic gas control instead of the heavier duty robert shaw
hard steel gas valve that is on the plumbers grade heaters....

HOME DEPOT DOES NOT CARRY WARRANTY PARTS for the heaters...
Once they are out the door
it is your problem to go find parts...
.
wether it break down next week or 5 years from now, you are stuck
holding the bag... They also have no service people through Rheem to come
out and deal with your problem because they do not pay anything to the service people

Presently our RHEEM supply house is having fits because of this .. people who have bought
the HD water heater think they should be able to come in and get free "plumbers grade" warranty parts from them
and it just dont work that way because they do not need all the aggravation.

HD has no thermostats in any store or burner assemblies... they can order them and it will arrive in a week..
Then they lie to the customer to get them out of their hair and claim that the supply houses should be willing
to warranty that junk., but the supply houses are not gonna do HD any favors either.

Then the customer drives across town and are turned away
because it not the same series on the serial number and then the
customer gets all pissed off at them.....
They can SELL them the parts but not give them away. I get folks calling me
all the time and showing up at my door looking for HD parts....and for Whirlpool too


So basically, if you buy a HD heater and it has problems its actually
easier to lie to home depot and claim it has a leaking tank and
get a whole new replacement heater and change it out over waiting
up to a 2 weeks for parts to arrive.....



So you do get what you pay for....
 
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hj

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Home Depot not longer does a straight tank for tank replancement. Now they credit you for the original price paid, or what their records show it might have sold for when new if you do not have your receipt, and then charge you full price for the new one.
 

Master Plumber Mark

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Home Depot not longer does a straight tank for tank replancement. Now they credit you for the original price paid, or what their records show it might have sold for when new if you do not have your receipt, and then charge you full price for the new one.


Thanks, I dont know about that .... it would mean that the rating tag is
worthless without your receipt.... that would be a load of crap..
Rheem has never pulled that stunt on anyone to my knowledge....

are you saying that they pro-rate the heater????

I have taken back leaking Richmond heaters to Menards with no questions asked
before....all they wanted was the name and address where I took it out of........

But if what you say is true,,. then it makes me wonder if the HD Rheem warranty is
transferrable to the next home owner??

Whirlpool Water heaters weasels out of water heater
warranties if you are not the original owner of the property who bought the heater..
You buy a 12 year heater then move in 8 years and the next guy is screwed because
he was not the original owner who bought it....

I am gonna call them and find out on Friday just for fun....its bad enough you cant get parts
now you are telling me they will screw you also when you bring one in that is leaking.......


you get what you pay for, and keep getting it
 
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Master Plumber Mark

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HJ...

Just had a little spat with home depot last week... I installed a 12 year Platinum 50 electric water heater
in an expensive condo downtown first floor.. back in Arpil... This is the unit with the digital light and control panel
on the front of it and you can also install a wi-fi on it to be able to turn it up and down from your phone if you want to,,

The control went out on this unit last week... thought it might be the bottom element but it was all ok....
the heater had a re-cirulation line on it and it was constantly heating the top and bottom 24-7 day in and day out..
and the circuit finally failed... they kept it at 140 to heat the complete 3 bathroom condo.
it is still heating the top element but is not doing the bottom one...

Of course HOME DEPOT only sells the water heater and they DO NOT carry the parts...so this control panel is going
to have to be shipped into town and will arrive sometime this week for me to work on for free of course.....

I could just as easily torn the high tech equipment off this unit and simply installed the standard upper and lower
thermostats on it and we would have been done.... So I have told this gentleman that this one is probably going to
last about 6 months and burn out too unless he installs a timer on the pump to only come on about 6 hours a day
I dont trust the parts at all, and either the sensor will fail or the control board will crash again........

I should have known better and installed a Rheem unit from my supply house but they got on line and found this
high-tech one and now I am in trouble.....
 

Jadnashua

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IMHO, few WH are designed to be used as a boiler and run 24/7 on a regular basis. Electronics are also subject to line transients, and to combat that, I advocate a whole-home surge suppressor install. Think of the junctions in transistors and things like triacs as a piece of wood when using an ax...you won't weaken it radically with the first chop, but eventually, you'll chop a hole in it...electronic junctions are susceptible to damage in that manner as well as that tree you're trying to chop down with an ax. The ax may be small, and the force low, but eventually, things can fail, whether electronics or that tree.
 

Master Plumber Mark

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IMHO, few WH are designed to be used as a boiler and run 24/7 on a regular basis. Electronics are also subject to line transients, and to combat that, I advocate a whole-home surge suppressor install. Think of the junctions in transistors and things like triacs as a piece of wood when using an ax...you won't weaken it radically with the first chop, but eventually, you'll chop a hole in it...electronic junctions are susceptible to damage in that manner as well as that tree you're trying to chop down with an ax. The ax may be small, and the force low, but eventually, things can fail, whether electronics or that tree.


I totally agree... but people want the bells and whistles on these things....
I will gladly change it out one time as long as we modify the pump to be on a timer,
but I will not come back again

What anyone needs the capability of putting a wi-fi on their heater escapes me but
it seems to make them happy with the option to do it.....
 

DonL

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What anyone needs the capability of putting a wi-fi on their heater escapes me but
it seems to make them happy with the option to do it.....

That is so companies can trigger a service call when work is slow, shut you off when they want.

And to give your neighbors something to hack when you piss them off. :eek:
 

Master Plumber Mark

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It took a week to get the parts sent from Rheem HD to make the repairs to this Platinum heater..
They do not keep any parts in the stores... I hope that this settles the problem with this heater


On a good note they want to send me 125. dollars for my troubles..

here are some fun pictures of the heater...

https://goo.gl/photos/gtPWSBoeZ7jVJFb49
 

ruthrj18

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I'm in almost the same boat as G20.

I'm a homeowner looking to replace my 15 year old 40 gal conventional electric water heater with a Rheem heat pump water heater (50 gal). I'l;l be pulling my own permit and installing on my own (Florida). Home Depot sells the Performance Platinum series, and a local plumbing supply house sells the Professional Prestige. All of the specifications appear to be the same...

I called Rheem's customer support line and a representative said there's no difference between the two besides name and the location they are sold in. Home Depot sells the Performance Platinum for $1199, local supply house sells the Professional Prestige for ~$1130.

If the supply house variant is higher quality the decision on which one to buy is a no brainer (the Professional Prestige). Just wanted to check with you all and see if you have any opinions or experience with these products. It seems like I should purchase through the supply house should I need easier access to parts in the future should something go wrong.
 

ruthrj18

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Thanks, Mark. I didn't even bother asking Home Depot as they usually don't know that much. Here's an excerpt from Rheems response to my question as to the difference:

"Both unit s are made at the same factory, the same assembly lines and quality materials. The retail product from Home Depot may have subtle differences but either product is made of the highest standards that Rheem requires."

Key word there being "subtle": plastic drain valves, parts that aren't readily available, lol! I'll definitely go with the one from the supply house then (Hughes). It's cheaper and plumber grade. Glad I stumbled on this forum. I nearly pulled the trigger on the Home Depot retail version. Thank you again for all of the advice/observations above!
 

ruthrj18

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Oh, you know what, I'd also like your guys thoughts on how to run the condensate plumbing. Water heater is going in my garage. Garage is below the level of the rest of the house. No floor drain. Any potential leaks due to some kind of tank failure will run down the angles floor and out the garage door opening.

High pressure relief valve on old tank is already plumbed through the exterior wall next to the tank such that it will drain outdoors. Inspector says I won't need a drain pan as the relief valve is plumbed to the outdoors.

However, I realize I still need to do something about the condensate. I could do a condensate pump and drain it into an adjacent utility room, but that seems like more trouble than it's worth. Id rather drill another hole through the concrete block next to the heater and have the condensate drain to the outdoors. Has to be a separate line from the relief valve plumbing, code doesn't allow anything to share the high pressure relief line (for good reason lol).

I'm definitely drilling a hole through the block and plumbing 3/4" CPVC to the outdoors for the primary condensate line. But, I see the tank has an auxiliary 3/8" line in addition to the primary. Here's my question, should I drill a separate hole and plumb a CPVC 3/8 auxiliary line on its own, or could I join the 3/8 inch line to the primary 3/4 inch line using a t junction or something? That way they would both drain outdoors through a shared 3/4 line.

I hope I'm not entirely hijacking the thread here! Happy holidays!
 

ruthrj18

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Just wanted to post my findings. Purchased and installed my Rheem Professional Prestige 50 gal hybrid water heater. Will post pictures later this week (forgot to install a vacuum relief valve, don't want to post a misleading pic).

It's working great! Right out of the box, it already had a quarter turn brass drain valve. Flathead needed to open it. Another difference between the supply house water heaters and Home Depots water heaters is the warranty. The Professional line still has a 12 year parts warranty, but has no labor coverage. The Home Depot water heaters have three year labor and 12 year parts. That's completely fine with me though after reading this thread and others. It doesn't seem like you'd be able to get labor service anyway should something go bad with the Home Depot heater. I'm confident I could replace any parts as needed should anything go wrong with this heater (short of screwing around with the heat pump anyway lol).

I was also able to get the supply house water heater cheaper than the Home Depot water heater. I paid $1130 with tax, Home Depot charges $1199 pretax for theirs. Supply house also hooked me up with free delivery!

Very impressed with the quality. Hardest part of the install was drilling holes through my block wall to run the condensate lines. Used the existing line in the wall from the old water heater for the TP relief valve. Discharges outdoors, no floor drain in my garage.

This bad boy is a little on the loud side, but I can barely hear it indoors. It's installed in my Florida garage. Would never recommend installing this in a house due to the noise level. Gets the immediate area around the water heater a whole 5 degrees cooler when it's actually running, which isn't often. Very satisfied thus far!
 

Reach4

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Just wanted to post my findings. Purchased and installed my Rheem Professional Prestige 50 gal hybrid water heater. Will post pictures later this week (forgot to install a vacuum relief valve, don't want to post a misleading pic).
Do you have a floor lower than the water heater or a well?
 

ruthrj18

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No, I don't, which is why I didn't think of one in the first place. But i went back and double checked the Florida code on water heaters and it has a section on vacuum relief valves, and requires it specifically for bottom fed tank heaters :(
 
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Master Plumber Mark

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Just had another home depot person call me today needing help with the honeywell control on his unit..
it was less than 16 months old... Told him that no one in town can get the parts for them so he would have
to raise hell with HD and they might get something to him in a week or two...

I also mentioned to him that HD will probably lie to him to get him off the line and say that any Rheem
distributor in Indianapolis will gladly give him free parts for his HD rheem heater.......

I told him not to fall for that scam and
insist on parts asap..... Cant wait to hear back from him
when they finally arrive
 
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