Replace tank or not?

[JerryR]

We just bought a vacation house with a 18 year old electric water heater. Anode rod still has foam insulation over it so it has never been replaced.

It’s on well water with a sulfur aerator tank with chlorine injected into the aerator tank. Then it goes through a water softener system to the house.

Should I replace the tank?

 

[Cacher_Chick]

The question I always ask is "what will it hurt when the tank starts leaking?". If the space ius unfinished and the water is not going to cause any damage, why not let it ride?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[JerryR]

This is a modular home and the water heater in a small closet by itself. The floor is vinyl over plywood in the water heater closet. It’s in a plastic pan that has a drain going under to the crawl space but the pan is old and broken. The floors in the home are bamboo wood which would not do well if they got wet.

An unnoticed leak would not be nice. Water damage would not be good. If it were in a garage with concrete floor I would not be asking the question.

The well pumps, pressure tanks, water softener etc are in a barn about 300 feet from the house. Anytime we leave for a few days I turn off the water to the house via ball valve. If leaving longer I turn off power to the pumps.

I put a Honeywell water sense alarm (noise maker) in the water heater pan.

 

[Jadnashua]

One thing that I personally think is a good idea is a WAGS valve. www.wagsvalve.com . While setting an alarm may help, but that assumes someone is home. A WAGS valve will disable the WH from running AND shut off the incoming water. It does require a working safety pan as the leaking water must get about 1/2" deep or so to trigger the thing. Shutting off the inlet sort of acts like a finger over the end of a straw, so water tends to not continue to leak, or if it does, do it more slowly since there's no longer any pressure.

 

[Dana]

Longevity is largely a function of how much water has moved through the tank. In an intermittently used vacation house an 18 year old water heater may have only seen three to five "normal" years of water flow through the tank, and could easily go for another decade.

When the place won't be occupied for several days or weeks, turn off the water & power to the tank.

 

[JerryR]

Longevity is largely a function of how much water has moved through the tank. In an intermittently used vacation house an 18 year old water heater may have only seen three to five "normal" years of water flow through the tank, and could easily go for another decade.

When the place won't be occupied for several days or weeks, turn off the water & power to the tank.

Dana,

Thanks for the reply. From what I understand the first 16 years the owner rarely stayed at the house. Only the last 18 months was it occupied 100% of the time.

We always turn off water and water heater power whenever we leave any house, even when gone just for one night.

I think I’ll pull the anode on the tank and if it doesn’t look REAL BAD I’ll install a powered anode and a Honeywell AMX300TLF mixing valve. I like the AMX300TLF valve because it allows me to turn up the tank heat to 140 deg and still feed 120 deg water to the fixtures. The 140 deg I feel helps kill bacteria. I could easily return the water heater to HD.

I think I’ll patch the plastic water heater pan with some eternabond tape that I keep for my RV.

If I run into trouble I can always throw in the new tank.