I’m just pausing to write a quick post, before I go to help my daughter with the bathtub plumbing.
We got the new hot water tank element tool out just a little while ago, and headed into the basement to see what we could find in the two older tanks. The hope was to be able to use one of the elements from the old tanks to replace the burnt out one in the current tank.
Yeeeeaaaahhhh….
That’s not gonna happen.
This is what we pulled out of the first tank, where I’d already opened up the panel for the top element. The bottom one was encrusted in scale on the outside, so that one was clearly not going to be good.
Click through to see the other side of the element.
Wow.
Yeah, that’s toast.
So we opened up the panel for the other old tank.
The first warning that things were not good was that I had to tear the panel free of the insulation.
The outside of the insulation had rust on it, and we could see damage to the wires.
After tearing away most of the insulation, this is what we found.
Yeah. That plastic cover is melted. That thermostat is burned.
Click through to the next image, and you can see more of the damage, and how completely encrusted the outside of the element is!
It is an absolute miracle that there wasn’t a fire started.
As for the current tank, we no longer even have warm water, so we’ve shut the breaker off. It looks like both elements are burned out now. Seeing what we pulled out of the old tank, I’m not at all surprised!
When the first tank died, it was after less than 2 years of use, which is why we were able to replace it on warranty. About a year later, when we saw the replacement tank starting to leak on the bottom, we were able to replace that on warranty, too, even though we should not have been able to. We kept the new tank in the box until the second tank finally died. It lasted far longer than we expected.
I just looked up my old posts. This current tank was installed just over a year ago – Oct. 10, 2023, to be exact. We were able to pick it up as a warranty replacement in April of 2021. Before that, we got a new tank in January of 2020, though it took a bit longer before we could get it installed. The tank that was originally here was replaced in December of 2017, just in time for Christmas. All four of us had been here for little more than a month at the time!
Not counting the original tank – I found the original warranty papers for that, dated 1963, if I remember correctly – we have gone through 3 modern tanks in less than 7 years of living here.
The most recent one lasting just over a year after installation.
That. Is. Insane.
It all really comes down to our water. I remember talking to the plumber during one of the installations, and he told me that this is pretty typical for hot water tanks in our area.
When all this started, these tanks cost a little over $400. Looking at them now, I see they cost about $700 for the exact same tank.
The elements cost about $40 each.
With the powered anode rod that should arrive next week, that will hopefully keep the tank going longer, though we still need to get the right tool to remove the old anode rod. I thought the tool we got for the element might also work for the rod, but it’s way too big. We need to buy the right size socket to be able to remove the anode rod.
For right now, though, I need to go help my daughter. She was able to get the piece out that needed to be cut out. With the adapters, we might not even need to replace the copper pipes to the basement, though the hot water one has the 90° elbows in it, so that one should probably be replaced with Pex, at the very least.
But I digress!
Time to go assist my daughter.
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 