Finally got my dad to change his anode rod!

ChrisJ

After hounding my dad for two years he finally let me change the anode rod in his water heater.



Bradford white power vented 50gal model installed in early 2007. I removed the hot side connector and nothing was left! I looked down in the tank but there was nothing to be found though I didn't feel like completely draining to heater to see if anything had fallen.



I put the new rod in but something tells me that tank isn't going to last a whole lot longer. They have well water and he seemed to recall the PH being on the low side.



How common is it to find not only the rod gone but even the wire gone on these heaters?

kcopp

pretty common.

An anode usually last 2-4 years....

Jean-David Beyer

An anode usually last 2-4 years....

I suppose this depends, in part, on the quality of your water, but I had no idea it was this short. Clearly, my plumbers in the past have been incompetent or worse, because they plumbed the water heaters in such a way that you could not inspect or replace the anode rod without cutting out the pipe, examining (might as well replace it if you pull it out) it, putting in the new one, and installing all new near-heater pipe. Needless to say, I never did this, and the heaters lasted at least 25 years before leaking. Are unions that expensive?



My current heater is also not easy to check the anode rod. The only good thing is that it does not have one. I hope it does not need it. It is a W-M tank-within-a-tank model with the inner tank (the one with the domestic hot water in it) made of stainless steel. Actually made by Triangle Tube (in Belgium).

ChrisJ

Stainless tank

Now that sounds like an idea!



You're right. Unions arn't that expensive and as far as I can tell are required by code in most areas. I guess its one of those rules no one cares about.



I installed them on mine when I put it in and I added them to my dad's as it didn't have any.