indirect - glass vs stainless

allenh

Shouldn't an indirect last longer due to boiler water at 180 degrees instead of a flame underneath it?
The latest leaker is internal where its leaking city water into the boiler water.
My thinking is to lose 3 out of 4 indirects in 8 years is not good. We other stainless brands that are ~17 years old and still working just fine.
I suppose its possible I had a bad batch of indirects. Does anyone know if Bock turbo-storr had recalls?

allenh

indirect - glass vs stainless

We manage a few rentals. In 2001 we had 4 new glass lined indirects installed in a 4 fam dwelling with 4 new boilers. Today we had the third one fail. The first two leaked and the one today must have a pinhole leak between the internal coil and the domestic water. Its increasing water pressure in the boiler enough to blow the T & P.
In another building we have 2 stainless ones. They are 17 years old and been cleaned once.
Has anyone seen a glass lined tank last over 10 years? What is the average life span of fiberglass indirects?
Can make the case for me to replace the failed one with a fiberglass one.

Jack

Glass lined tanks

are not like buying a pyrex coffee pot. They are not all glass, due to the production method. Once you make the tank and run the glass gun up into it and then run the tank through the industial furnace you get a process called "burn back". Which basically is the flue gases racing through the tank openings at a very high velocity, burning the glass back from the tank penetrations. Once your anode rod is gone...and how would you know, the water attacks the next tastiest thing, which is the tank itself.

Check and maintain/replace the anode rod. If you do it you will be in an incedibly low, probably hundreths of 1% who do, you should see what you are dealing with.

As well, I think any decision on a long term spec should start with a thorough water analysis. If you are on city water the information is readily available. If it is a well, you should get one done yourself.

tim smith

You could have electrolysis. I would make sure that your piping

is bonded properly to your electrical system, all pipes. Have an electrician make sure your panel is properly grounded and that all pipes are bonded to system. I also 2nd that you might be burning through anode rods. Pull the anode rods out of one of the dead tanks, if all gone then you have a pretty aggressive water system and you might need to change rods periodically. Also Stainless is not the be all and end all. If the water is chlorinated to a fairly high extent, it will eat stainless sometimes faster than steel. Good luck

allenh

indirect - glass vs stainless

All of our tanks are on city water. All are chlorinated.
It just seems strange that fiberglass do not last that long when the temp is only 180.
I will check grounds as anything is possible.

Steve_35

Indirect WH

I think every brand of water heater we've installed over the years has had at least one fail. Some more than one. The only one we have yet to replace is a Buderus.

Bill Clinton_6

indirect

What is the coil made of. There have been some around made of aluminum. If your's is, there's your problem.

Bill

allenh

indirect - glass vs stainless

no clue what is made of. Its a Bock turbo-storr 30CT.
To lose three of the four we had installed in 2001 is not a good sign.

Unknown

correct me if I'm wrong...

One of the supply house told be that Bock tanks were made by Bradford White... if so, there's your problem. I never had good luck with BW in this area.

Constantin

Not correct, they make their own.

I'd check the anode rods and the grounding of the electrical system. All tanks, stainless or not can get eaten quickly by stray voltage.

hot_rod

Bradford White and

Lochinvar exchange tanks, as I recall. Lochinvar makes the large sizes they have a huge oven.

I visited the Bock plant last fall and they were building tanks. They also coil those large diametr indirect and solar tank coils at another facility. Perhaps those coils appear in other brands of tanks?

hr

oil-2-4-6-gas

we have been cutting out 500 gallon storage tanks-- too many sites recently --All of them were glass lined --All of them had anodes that were not replaced --they were from 5 to 30 years old-----We have been replacing with 3 AoSmith TJV 140 tanks// the first site this was done was 2 years ago --we pulled the anodes to find that they are almost gone ----now we have ALL of these tanks scheduled for annual anode replacement ---- IF YOU HAVE ANY GLASS LINED TANKS You Need to replace the anodes,at least check them after 2 years ---the tanks will last a lot longer ----

oil-2-4-6-gas