Water Heater Installation -Why my 3 year old water heater failed!
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- Опубликовано: 24 фев 2024
- In this video, I show you how to install a hot water heater, a hot water tank or water heater. Installing a hot water heater is not difficult, but there are several steps that must be followed. More specifically in this video I show step-by-step how I installed a gas hot water tank to replace my three year old hot water tank that was having issues. Have you ever had brown hot water? My new hot water tank is an AO Smith Signature 100 40 gallon hot water heater. With some perseverance, this DIY project can certainly be done by a beginner, but I would recommend watching several videos and learning as much as you can about the subject before you begin.
My old water heater was only three years old, but it was producing water that had a funny odor (metallic ), and was beige to brown in color.  Because I am a pretty handy fella, my old hot water heater had regular maintenance and recently I tried to flush this tank several times. Because the brown water kept coming back I suspected something pretty drastic was happening inside my tank so I replaced it and cut it open for this video. I did reach out to the manufacturer and they told me they would not be able to help me.

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Okay guys! Tell me what you think about that old tank? Also, did you come to watch the water heater installation or to watch me cut open my old tank? Leave a comment below and tell me⤵️
you might need to test your water to figure out why the rod got ate so fast, could be you might need a different anode material as some metals work better with certain water ph levels than others.
Note AO smith states the anode needs to be checked once a year for warranty.
Thanks for commenting! I was wondering about the composition of my water, and how that might affect the tank.
That old heater was pretty gross….was wondering if there was also any sediment buildup in the tank?
No sediment really, just some rusty debris.
Did you install that softener with the old tank? The anode rod is there to keep the tank from scaling to my understanding. The fact that it failed essentially immediately upon installation tells me that’s a very bad product.
At first I was interested in the instal, but found the condition of the old heater to be a huge bonus. The whole video was great 👍 Thanks
Thanks for tuning in and checking out the video! I was certainly surprised to see what was inside of that tank lol
just passed you on trip and decatur! instant sub love supporting the locals man
Right on! #vegasstrog
I agree with you. The tank is ruined with a big rectangle hole in its tank. Ha ha
My water heater is 27 years old with zero problems. I contribute that because it uses water form the water softener.
That is fantastic! Plays a big role in tank longevity. Also 27 years ago, I believe things were made a lot better!
I just so happened to professionally install these for a handful of years recently. Rheems for The Home Depot, primarily, but almost everything under the sun, actually. So here's my takes on things. So, the smell you had in your water was from the absence of the anode rod. I'm guessing water in Nevada ain't that great, but it seems like there could be a variety of contributing factors here. Galvanized piping. Is the whole house the stuff, or is this branch leading to the water heater the last of it? Repipers seem like they can't be arsed to move water heaters for their work. Also, though I'm sure they still sell them in big box stores I'm sure, saddle valves are a violation of code in Nevada, actually. And they really don't help galvanized nipples. I'm surprised you were able to reuse it, honestly. And frankly, I wouldn't. The seal between flex lines and the corroding edges of galvanized nipples are a routine failure point I saw. My (and others) methodology was to replace every bit of galvanized pipe leading to the water heater before a female fitting with a brass nipple. Galvanized fittings (especially the ancient made in USA one) hold up incredibly well. The pipe is nothing near. Also, gate valves are generally terrible and very rarely successfuly shut off the water heater, so we replace these all with ball valves.
And no, this was not hunting for making money off the customer. I did everything in my power to skirt charging customers additional money when I was doing that job, and the way in which I was compelled to was a huge part of why I left.
Other things.
(I should say, I've seen plenty of other videos, including one from This Old House that were super unprofessional, this one is nowhere on that level. Our low tier installers with the company would have done worse.)
The use of flex lines as drain line for temperature and pressure relief valves is unsupported by code. As chintzy as it seems, CPVC is kind of the best thing for this. I mean, copper's actually the best, but it's costly and requires knowing how to sweat.
Also, I would have got a Bradford White or some other specific model of water heater that had a top mount T+P option. Furthermore, you can remove the valve and thread it back in with new tape and dope and alter which direction it is pointing so long as it is not oriented to drain upwards. Diagonally would help here.
Also, a thing I would do for customers was salvage the good brass drain valves off of dead tanks (particularly Rheem Gladiator electric water heaters that had an almost 90% failure rate for their upper thermostat) and use them to replace the craptastic plastic drain valves like the one you've got here. You can buy Everbuilt ones at HD for not too much.
Another small thing, the C-vent isn't seated as well on the draft diverter as it should be. :/
And another thing for the galvanized piping, the rust, and etc.: I would forego using the copper flex lines. Strictly speaking, they are considered fine and equivalent to dielectric unions and whatnot, but you are inserting a dissimilar metal between two similar metals needlessly. The stainless flex lines really can't be beat, Brasscraft especially.
As for the anode rod situation, you should definitely open up your drain valve and dump some water every year or so, and get yourself a 1-1/16 6-point socket and maybe replace it in a year and a half or 2 years with an aluminum one. The magnesium ones are generally considered better, but it seems like some water is like piranha solution to magnesium but behaves normally on aluminum.
Also, maybe it was intentional, but the thumbnail seems to suggest you are replacing a gas Rheem with an electric AO Smith.
Lastly, if it's not too late, you could have scavenged a fairly valuable part from the Rheem that you could have held onto for someone in a pinch or sold on craigslist or something. The TRD. Or thermal release device, I think. It's in the burner section. It's a fire sprinkler head-like capsule mechanism that basically doesn't exist for sale and will "brick" a modern FVIR tank for good if you can't get one if it should break. Which happens quite often with 75s.
Oh, and as for the flare connection. Nothing wrong with it unless it was a lot of tape that would get in the way of you seating the fitting adequately.
And even though nothing about your issue would seem to suggest it, it might be worthwhile (for code compliance and whatnot) to determine if your house's water lines are a closed plumbing system and whether or not there should be a thermal expansion tank installed on the inlet side of the tank. What makes the system closed is a one-way valve that exists on the street side of the water heater. A check valve or backflow preventer by the meter, or a pressure reducing valve in the house, likely in the garage if anywhere. This can also largely be determined by observing the behavior of a (3/4" GHT female) pressure gauge when you attach it to a hose bibb with a dual shutoff hose tee. A little difficult to explain in words, but there's probably videos on it.
Thanks for taking the time to write your comment! This will certainly give viewers plenty to think about!
Can I ask you what are some of the best water heater brands for gas recirculating water to the HVAC if you have on east coast water but cold winters? I need a plumbers unbiased opinion and not some public affairs b.s. your opinion matters, please advise 🧐.
As a professional water heater wrestler / installer, I endorse this comment. @@orijimi
@@richard09ableThe tank water heater market has almost no competition present in it now. Tanklesses have much more variety still. There's basically just Rheem, AO Smith, and Bradford White. And of course, a couple additional brands in the small form factor point-of-use space like Bosch and EEmax. AO Smith makes it seem like there's a lot of other brands because they make American, State, and other weird things like the "Direct Vent" brand. And it seems like there might be something legitimately different about those sub-brands. Anecdotally, they are longer-lived and better quality than standard AO Smith. So, yeah. Your recirculating water-source heating. I'm guessing it's a water heater doing dual service of providing hot water to your fixtures too. Well, the simple choice there is a 75 gallon gas. I would recommend Bradford or AO Smith there. Rheem 75s started having something wrong with them that was blowing up TRDs left and right starting in 2021, going into 2023. Hopefully, it's been resolved, though. But if only a 50 gallon is what the space allows, my only recommendation is a Bradford White RG250H6N. Sadly, they are only a 6 year warranty, but they are a beast of a tank.
That said, there's no guarantee either of these options can work with your current venting. If it's 3 inch B-vent rather than 4 inch, you're basically boned. Also, your gas piping might not be able to supply an adequate amount of additional gas for what these need. But that's much less likely.
How has it worked for you sir
Recovery is fast and no more brown water! I was reading about the benefits of keeping the water temperature a little hotter. Turns out that a hotter tank is more sanitary!
@@MrFredsDIY how hot what level
@jaytravel-12 The temperature adjustment knob has (A, B, C, Very Hot) in that order. I have mine set between B & C.
You have really soft water you could have just replaced the anode rod and flushed tank really well and it would have lasted you another 3 years this new water heater will do the same thing in 3 years the rod it self last 3-5 years in ur case I would change it in 2 1/2 years to 3 years or look into fixing ur soft water issue
Thanks for commenting! After cutting the tank open and seeing half of the original anode rod rusting away at the bottom of the tank, I realize that no amount of flushing would have eliminated my brown water problem. I am certainly glad that I replaced this tank and will likely change my anode rod in two years.
As a side note, if you watch the video closely where I film inside the tank, you will see that the tank was already starting to get compromised where the emergency valve enters and at the top of the tank where the waterline comes in and the waterline goes out. After inspecting the lining of the tank itself, I was shocked to see many spots of rust starting to penetrate the enamel lining as well. I did not throw away my tank because it is part of my studio now lol.
Another reason that you have orange water and smells like metal maybe because you still have galvanize pipes in ur house
Definitely don't cook with the heated water. Gross lol
Just install a water heater, they cost less than those HOT water heaters
It looks like you have a water softener there next to the water heater. It should have been installed properly, so that doesn't seem likely to have caused the issue, but it does point to another possibility. Since you need the water softener, that indicates the water quality isn't dynamite, and given the "improvements" they make to keep costs down (for the manufacturer), the anode could have been made smaller than in the past, since that's the 6-year warranty model. Bad water, a smaller anode (or bad anode to begin with), and not checking the anode when draining the water heater could/would result in premature failure not being caught in time.
It sounds like the anode might have been a piece of crap from the beginning, and your water quality sped up the process of it going to hell. To be fair to the manufacturer, you did state that it was giving you signs of issues (the brown water). Everything else inside seems to be good. I do agree with you that the manufacturer should have been more proactive in helping you with this, but you didn't describe what your experience was with them. Given that it's a 6-year warranty, and the anode rod is a consumable wear item, the warranty may lay out that what they did was acceptable within the warranty guidelines regarding the water heater. While nobody expects a 6-year warranty water heater to require anode replacement so soon, it's possible that if you HAD replaced the anode when you started to notice this issue, you'd have a baseline to determine if it really required replacement.
Replacing the anode would likely have solved your issue for at least another year, and would have been far cheaper than replacing the whole tank. AO Smith has been a great brand for me in my area - 13 years & 9 years thus far, with no problems for either, given that they were "6-year warranty" water heaters. Timely replacement of the anodes, along with yearly draining of the tank go a long way towards keeping these things in working order.
Thanks for commenting! Our water here in Las Vegas is notoriously horrible. Another point of interest is that old water heater was manufactured in “2020” and we all know what happened that year.
@@MrFredsDIY "2020" could explain exactly what was wrong with it from the start 😉 Another thing to check would be if any fittings or pipe was replaced when that old water heater was installed. If so, making sure there's a break keeping dissimilar fittings separate, with a dielectric union, would be vital in your bad water situation. If that wasn't done, that speeds up the damage exponentially. Not sure, but it looks like you've got copper AND galvanized in your setup, and without separating those two with the dielectric, you're creating a "battery" of sorts, which could also explain why the anode failed so quickly.