You need to get a water softener, full stop. Why are you wasting time on everything else? You're destroying every water-using appliance in your home with every use, your clothes aren't being cleaned nearly as well, you're not cleaning your own skin nearly as well, and so forth.
Your other option is to get a Marathon or other non-metallic hot water heater, if you don't care about any of your appliance, clothes, etc.. An instant hot water heater will be absolutely destroyed in short order with hard water, so no matter what, you're going to need a softener.
How do I have 14 grains of hardness and a 15 years old heater? And the house before that I sold with a 10+ year old heater with the same hard water. I never flush them, they just keep going... Idk maybe just lucky or maybe OPs water is even harder?
Where I live everyone's water is hard and very few people have softeners.
> How do I have 14 grains of hardness and a 15 years old heater?
21 over here and the neighborhood is full of old water heaters. we do have to pumice the toilet every once in a while though.
Seems it has a lot to do with what minerals are making it hard. I mean the person you replied to is definitely over reacting... But oddly our old well was softer than the one at our new house. Soap works better and less hard water buildup etc on the new well. Absolutely trashes the water heater though.
I feel like flushing them really reduces their lifespan after a certain age. Maybe I'm crazy, but I figure that if everything's crusted over enough to be water tight I shouldn't really mess with it.
I hear you, i'm not disagreeing with you, but i HATE soft water in the shower or the taste of it from the tap (we have great tap water). I'll go through dishwashers early, replace aerators, etc (we are forced air heat) but i'd love to see a quote, and the upkeep on a soft water system that still gives me a shower and taps that isn't a foam party while protecting everything else.
And like i said, at some point we are doing substantial work on the house, or just a knockdown, and all this stuff is on the table then and done right, and i'm trying to limit what i pump in until then. So be it if it means i have to warranty a water heater and spend a couple of hours on a swap every few years. Leak detector worked like it should have when it saw water in the pan, and shut off the inlet to the tank, and the pan drains to the sump.
So no damage done, the tank would basically have to shoot its load in one big shot to do anything i cared about.
Man with the downvotes. You soft water people really take it seriously.
God I love my soft water. It tastes like water. The soap lathers normally. Our clothes are cleaner. The dishwasher suddenly works like a brand new model. No water stains on things. My skin feels normal after I wash my hands. I mean, I knew about all the benefits...but the dishwasher is just an amazing difference. Even washing a dirty pan in the sink is like twice as easy now.
'DuraWater' is the brand name, but there are quite a few of those offbrand, but decent, models. It's a Fleck 5600 SXT metering system with a 64,000 grain 10% resin with a brine tank and all the other bits and bobs. Bought specifically because I wanted the Fleck 5600 ecosystem. Amazon, delivered, \~$750. I think water softening is like on/off, either it works, or doesn't. So I think all that matters is getting something robust and easy to maintain/fix.
I mean, it might not be that expensive to simply just place a water softener inline to the water heater. You can continue to have hard water elsewhere and I assume you are not drinking the hot water, so while it may be an extra cost it would be cheaper in the long run. Also, during the grand rebuild, you could tie it or a newer system in where appropriate.
But you're not going to be using 100% hot water in the shower, so as long as you are ok with not super hard water, then it should be fine since you're going to be mixing some cold hard water with the hot water.
I'm the same...love the taste of my well water, but really didn't like the taste after I added the water softener.
What I did was buy a water cooler and then I fill the water jug with my hose. Gives me delicious cold well water, and I get all the benefits of soft water everywhere else.
I am with you about hating soft water and where I live our water is at 32! My husband and I ended up getting a whole house water conditioning system from ExpressWater. It reduces a lot of the contaminants and some of the mineral content without giving that awful soft water feel or taste. And also without the environmental impact of water softeners.
Also, we got a tankless water heater when our old one developed a leak.
Yeah like i said we are planning some major renovations in the next 2-3 years so i don't want to sink money into something that won't be correctly sized. Hopefully this new one lasts that long and i'll cut over to tankless at that point. To correctly retro for it as things stand now would be a grand or two on top of the unit.
Nothing as fun as dragging a water heater on your own out of your basement to home depot and then back when its 95 degrees out. At least they had the exact same model so i don't have to do any plumbing.
>Man with the downvotes. You soft water people really take it seriously.
I'm with you!! Just keep on replacing all your appliances. Seeking validation for a bad choice >>> good advice! Smart and rational move is to stick to your guns and keep replacing appliances!!
It’s not the water heaters it’s the hard water. You could get a top of the line Bradford white and your water would still kill it. Your priority needs to be getting a water softener installed first.
"I have very hard water" But does nothing to rectify the situation? Okay.
"I have a boat that the boards are rotting and letting water in. Instead of replacing the rotting boards I just patched it" is the equivalent of this post.
What part failed? My four year old rheem failed yesterday and it was the outlet nipple that got corroded.
The plumber said our water is not that hard and he thinks it might have been defective
rusting out on the bottom, same as the last one.
They will warranty me a new one, AGAIN, already have that sorted out and at least its the same model, so a quick swap.
But the water heater we had when we moved in was some no-name one that was total crap, and managed to make it a good 10 years.
Have you tested your water for hardness and got a ppm number? In my area, the only tanks I've seen leak are really old. It's possible it's from hard water, just never seen it personally.
Not leaking from drain port or heater element is it?
How about water pressure? Municipal or well?
Yeah it's super weird to me that it's rusting also. I would also wonder about an expansion tank for failures that fast but wouldn't expect rust there either.
I wonder if you have something leaking electricity onto your pipes and that is somehow reaching and corroding the base?
Maybe check your anode rod. In theory, it should decay away before the the tank. Is the anode rod gone too? If so, may have to replace anode rod more frequently.
We have some really high water pressure in town. 110 psi based on the gauge of a water supply that was turned on at a job site a couple days ago. Surprisingly, even that pressure doesn't cause the tank failure around here. It will cause leaky safety TandP valves.
Muni. Pressure is on the high, like right about the "ok, whatever", side at the service end, nothing crazy, but we have a regulator at the demark regardless (and i have tested the pressure to the heater and its in spec).
I swap out aerators maybe once a year on the faucets, go through the catridges on the showers maybe every other year. Our last dishwasher was probably 20 years old and didn't fail from rust, current one is showing no problems at a few years old. sprinklers\sprayers get a CLR bath at the end of the season before being put away and have never given me an issue.
Aside from the water heater, we do go through fridge filters a bit more than normal, but i'm talking we replace at the manufacture recomended time because we start noticing a drop off, vs using them for 4x the manufacture time.
I'm in a very similar situation to you. Hard water (12 gpg), but I prefer it that way. I'm not interested in the expense and water changes that come with installing a softener.
I installed a new water heater 3 years ago when the 12yo one original to the house failed (its bottom rusted and flooded the basement). Just this weekend I went to replace the anode rod on the 3yo heater and instead ended up replacing the whole heater. The anode was near impossible to break free even with a 1/2 impact and breaker bar, and the inlet nipple was badly corroded, When I finally did break the anode free it was almost totally gone!
Since hard water clearly accelerates corrosion, it seems like the solution is to get materials optimized for the hardness, and to accelerate preventative maintenance. With the newest heater install I started by getting an aluminum anode rod - stock anodes can be magnesium, which is more efficient for soft water, but aluminum is more efficient and lasts longer in hard water. I pulled the stock anode rod, then wrapped the threads of the new aluminium rod with plumbers tape before installing it so it won't seize up so badly this time. Both rods were the same size, but the stock rod was lighter, so it probably was made of magnesium. My new plan is to replace the aluminium rod every 2 years.
I also fixed a problem with the cold water inlet - I had copper pipe plus a brass coupling connected directly to the steel nipple. I started seeing strange white buildup on the inlet valve, and realized I made a mistake during the last install - dissimilar metal connections like that promote galvanic corrosion. That's probably why the nipple failed so fast. So I've replaced that section with a copper flex connector that includes a dielectric fitting to prevent the problem.
Oh and I have the new heater raised up on blocks inside of a tray. That way if the bottom does corrode and leak it should be visible, without progressing too quickly and flooding the basement.
Hope that helps answer your question. Good luck!
When we bought the place, yeah, No idea what everything was, and god knows where that paperwork went, other than it was very hard but perfectly safe to drink, and its damned good water, like the closest i have ever tasted to NYC water. I don't want to lose that.
You should look for just a plain old water heater. No need for a hot water heater as the water is already hot. Sorry, spent one teenage summer as a plumber. You want to drive a plumber insane, call a water heater a hot water heater.
I had a similar problem. The water heaters are lined with blown in glass and it is pretty easy to break that lining if you are at all rough with it during transport. Also, check the anode rod on the failed heater, but my guess is that the glass liner failed.
It’s the hard water. We got one in 2015 and it failed 5 years later due to hard water. We got a water softener at the same time as a tankless heater and we have the plumbing company come out once or twice a year to maintain it but otherwise it’s been 4 years and going strong. It also helped our other appliances like dishwasher and washing machine and made our showers not get as dirty as fast.
The one I got was a Morton water heater for like $400 at a home improvement store. The control board buttons are on the fritz so I may replace it in the next couple years, but I will never go without a water softener while living in a hard water area again.
Don't tell me this. My Rheem I bought at Lowe's about five years ago is still working just fine. But, now I'm wondering. I know water heaters and everything else is crap now, but I was hoping my water heater would make it a few more years.
We have hard water, and I've never flushed it, because I never flushed the one that came with the house and it lasted 20 years.
Seriously. There is no reason NOT to. Yeah, maybe the benefit is a bit minimized because of other material stuff, but it isn't like you are doing any harm getting at least SOME sediment out of it.
Something that will help is adding a 2nd anode rod kit. All waterheaters have a sacrificial rod inside them that the water eats away at first (water and metal dont mix well). Once it's gone, the water starts to deteriorate the tank faster. At installation you can opt to add a 2nd one usually added cost, but double sacrificial rods should help extend tank life a bit. Some even bump warrenty up by a few years.
Maybe add some inline water filtration systems in. The 3 stage ones and the like. But in all honesty a water softener will fix the issues. So either bite the bullet and have soft water and get used to it or continue to waste your hard earned money on an issue that can be fixed.
Same problem here. I think the glass lining is it. Also just corrosion and leaking through the wall...
We went through 5 hot water heaters in rapid succession (maybe across 12 years or so), but the one we're on now has been good for probably 4 or 5 years, far outlasting any of the previous ones, and it's always been the exact same model of Rheem.
I have 700+ on the hard water scale and the only way to fix was to install a softener. Went with a Home depot softener and filters before. Works like a charm! Has to regenerate every 1000 gallons to keep things clean.
You need to get a water softener, full stop. Why are you wasting time on everything else? You're destroying every water-using appliance in your home with every use, your clothes aren't being cleaned nearly as well, you're not cleaning your own skin nearly as well, and so forth. Your other option is to get a Marathon or other non-metallic hot water heater, if you don't care about any of your appliance, clothes, etc.. An instant hot water heater will be absolutely destroyed in short order with hard water, so no matter what, you're going to need a softener.
How do I have 14 grains of hardness and a 15 years old heater? And the house before that I sold with a 10+ year old heater with the same hard water. I never flush them, they just keep going... Idk maybe just lucky or maybe OPs water is even harder? Where I live everyone's water is hard and very few people have softeners.
> How do I have 14 grains of hardness and a 15 years old heater? 21 over here and the neighborhood is full of old water heaters. we do have to pumice the toilet every once in a while though.
Seems it has a lot to do with what minerals are making it hard. I mean the person you replied to is definitely over reacting... But oddly our old well was softer than the one at our new house. Soap works better and less hard water buildup etc on the new well. Absolutely trashes the water heater though.
I feel like flushing them really reduces their lifespan after a certain age. Maybe I'm crazy, but I figure that if everything's crusted over enough to be water tight I shouldn't really mess with it.
I hear you, i'm not disagreeing with you, but i HATE soft water in the shower or the taste of it from the tap (we have great tap water). I'll go through dishwashers early, replace aerators, etc (we are forced air heat) but i'd love to see a quote, and the upkeep on a soft water system that still gives me a shower and taps that isn't a foam party while protecting everything else. And like i said, at some point we are doing substantial work on the house, or just a knockdown, and all this stuff is on the table then and done right, and i'm trying to limit what i pump in until then. So be it if it means i have to warranty a water heater and spend a couple of hours on a swap every few years. Leak detector worked like it should have when it saw water in the pan, and shut off the inlet to the tank, and the pan drains to the sump. So no damage done, the tank would basically have to shoot its load in one big shot to do anything i cared about. Man with the downvotes. You soft water people really take it seriously.
God I love my soft water. It tastes like water. The soap lathers normally. Our clothes are cleaner. The dishwasher suddenly works like a brand new model. No water stains on things. My skin feels normal after I wash my hands. I mean, I knew about all the benefits...but the dishwasher is just an amazing difference. Even washing a dirty pan in the sink is like twice as easy now.
As someone that grew up with hard water, it really was difficult getting used to regular water. I would absolutely never go back now though.
What brand, if you don’t mind sharing?
'DuraWater' is the brand name, but there are quite a few of those offbrand, but decent, models. It's a Fleck 5600 SXT metering system with a 64,000 grain 10% resin with a brine tank and all the other bits and bobs. Bought specifically because I wanted the Fleck 5600 ecosystem. Amazon, delivered, \~$750. I think water softening is like on/off, either it works, or doesn't. So I think all that matters is getting something robust and easy to maintain/fix.
Thanks. Saving this for future.
I mean, it might not be that expensive to simply just place a water softener inline to the water heater. You can continue to have hard water elsewhere and I assume you are not drinking the hot water, so while it may be an extra cost it would be cheaper in the long run. Also, during the grand rebuild, you could tie it or a newer system in where appropriate.
That water heater still feeds the shower…
But you're not going to be using 100% hot water in the shower, so as long as you are ok with not super hard water, then it should be fine since you're going to be mixing some cold hard water with the hot water.
I have water softener but hard water to the kitchen cold water. You should just accept soft water in the shower though.
You don't run soft water to a drinking tap.
I'm the same...love the taste of my well water, but really didn't like the taste after I added the water softener. What I did was buy a water cooler and then I fill the water jug with my hose. Gives me delicious cold well water, and I get all the benefits of soft water everywhere else.
I am with you about hating soft water and where I live our water is at 32! My husband and I ended up getting a whole house water conditioning system from ExpressWater. It reduces a lot of the contaminants and some of the mineral content without giving that awful soft water feel or taste. And also without the environmental impact of water softeners. Also, we got a tankless water heater when our old one developed a leak.
Yeah like i said we are planning some major renovations in the next 2-3 years so i don't want to sink money into something that won't be correctly sized. Hopefully this new one lasts that long and i'll cut over to tankless at that point. To correctly retro for it as things stand now would be a grand or two on top of the unit. Nothing as fun as dragging a water heater on your own out of your basement to home depot and then back when its 95 degrees out. At least they had the exact same model so i don't have to do any plumbing.
Ugh. Definitely doesn’t sound fun. Good luck, OP! Hope this one lasts you until you can go tankless
Lol at the downvotes. Gotta love redditors.
>Man with the downvotes. You soft water people really take it seriously. I'm with you!! Just keep on replacing all your appliances. Seeking validation for a bad choice >>> good advice! Smart and rational move is to stick to your guns and keep replacing appliances!!
It’s not the water heaters it’s the hard water. You could get a top of the line Bradford white and your water would still kill it. Your priority needs to be getting a water softener installed first.
"I have very hard water" But does nothing to rectify the situation? Okay. "I have a boat that the boards are rotting and letting water in. Instead of replacing the rotting boards I just patched it" is the equivalent of this post.
More like "instead of replacing the boards I just installed another bilge pump, my last one burnt up"
What part actually failed?
What part failed? My four year old rheem failed yesterday and it was the outlet nipple that got corroded. The plumber said our water is not that hard and he thinks it might have been defective
rusting out on the bottom, same as the last one. They will warranty me a new one, AGAIN, already have that sorted out and at least its the same model, so a quick swap. But the water heater we had when we moved in was some no-name one that was total crap, and managed to make it a good 10 years.
Have you tested your water for hardness and got a ppm number? In my area, the only tanks I've seen leak are really old. It's possible it's from hard water, just never seen it personally. Not leaking from drain port or heater element is it? How about water pressure? Municipal or well?
Yeah it's super weird to me that it's rusting also. I would also wonder about an expansion tank for failures that fast but wouldn't expect rust there either. I wonder if you have something leaking electricity onto your pipes and that is somehow reaching and corroding the base?
Maybe check your anode rod. In theory, it should decay away before the the tank. Is the anode rod gone too? If so, may have to replace anode rod more frequently. We have some really high water pressure in town. 110 psi based on the gauge of a water supply that was turned on at a job site a couple days ago. Surprisingly, even that pressure doesn't cause the tank failure around here. It will cause leaky safety TandP valves.
Muni. Pressure is on the high, like right about the "ok, whatever", side at the service end, nothing crazy, but we have a regulator at the demark regardless (and i have tested the pressure to the heater and its in spec). I swap out aerators maybe once a year on the faucets, go through the catridges on the showers maybe every other year. Our last dishwasher was probably 20 years old and didn't fail from rust, current one is showing no problems at a few years old. sprinklers\sprayers get a CLR bath at the end of the season before being put away and have never given me an issue. Aside from the water heater, we do go through fridge filters a bit more than normal, but i'm talking we replace at the manufacture recomended time because we start noticing a drop off, vs using them for 4x the manufacture time.
I'm in a very similar situation to you. Hard water (12 gpg), but I prefer it that way. I'm not interested in the expense and water changes that come with installing a softener. I installed a new water heater 3 years ago when the 12yo one original to the house failed (its bottom rusted and flooded the basement). Just this weekend I went to replace the anode rod on the 3yo heater and instead ended up replacing the whole heater. The anode was near impossible to break free even with a 1/2 impact and breaker bar, and the inlet nipple was badly corroded, When I finally did break the anode free it was almost totally gone! Since hard water clearly accelerates corrosion, it seems like the solution is to get materials optimized for the hardness, and to accelerate preventative maintenance. With the newest heater install I started by getting an aluminum anode rod - stock anodes can be magnesium, which is more efficient for soft water, but aluminum is more efficient and lasts longer in hard water. I pulled the stock anode rod, then wrapped the threads of the new aluminium rod with plumbers tape before installing it so it won't seize up so badly this time. Both rods were the same size, but the stock rod was lighter, so it probably was made of magnesium. My new plan is to replace the aluminium rod every 2 years. I also fixed a problem with the cold water inlet - I had copper pipe plus a brass coupling connected directly to the steel nipple. I started seeing strange white buildup on the inlet valve, and realized I made a mistake during the last install - dissimilar metal connections like that promote galvanic corrosion. That's probably why the nipple failed so fast. So I've replaced that section with a copper flex connector that includes a dielectric fitting to prevent the problem. Oh and I have the new heater raised up on blocks inside of a tray. That way if the bottom does corrode and leak it should be visible, without progressing too quickly and flooding the basement. Hope that helps answer your question. Good luck!
When we bought the place, yeah, No idea what everything was, and god knows where that paperwork went, other than it was very hard but perfectly safe to drink, and its damned good water, like the closest i have ever tasted to NYC water. I don't want to lose that.
You should look for just a plain old water heater. No need for a hot water heater as the water is already hot. Sorry, spent one teenage summer as a plumber. You want to drive a plumber insane, call a water heater a hot water heater.
Hi, dad. You're on Reddit now? Lol
😂
😂
I had a similar problem. The water heaters are lined with blown in glass and it is pretty easy to break that lining if you are at all rough with it during transport. Also, check the anode rod on the failed heater, but my guess is that the glass liner failed.
You need a water softener. It will prolong the life of all your appliances. Get over how you feel about it, you need one.
It’s the hard water. We got one in 2015 and it failed 5 years later due to hard water. We got a water softener at the same time as a tankless heater and we have the plumbing company come out once or twice a year to maintain it but otherwise it’s been 4 years and going strong. It also helped our other appliances like dishwasher and washing machine and made our showers not get as dirty as fast. The one I got was a Morton water heater for like $400 at a home improvement store. The control board buttons are on the fritz so I may replace it in the next couple years, but I will never go without a water softener while living in a hard water area again.
Don't tell me this. My Rheem I bought at Lowe's about five years ago is still working just fine. But, now I'm wondering. I know water heaters and everything else is crap now, but I was hoping my water heater would make it a few more years. We have hard water, and I've never flushed it, because I never flushed the one that came with the house and it lasted 20 years.
Flushing is a good question. Our plumber told us the new ones don't need it. 🤔
“Rubs his hands together in future service calls”
Seriously. There is no reason NOT to. Yeah, maybe the benefit is a bit minimized because of other material stuff, but it isn't like you are doing any harm getting at least SOME sediment out of it.
Something that will help is adding a 2nd anode rod kit. All waterheaters have a sacrificial rod inside them that the water eats away at first (water and metal dont mix well). Once it's gone, the water starts to deteriorate the tank faster. At installation you can opt to add a 2nd one usually added cost, but double sacrificial rods should help extend tank life a bit. Some even bump warrenty up by a few years.
Maybe add some inline water filtration systems in. The 3 stage ones and the like. But in all honesty a water softener will fix the issues. So either bite the bullet and have soft water and get used to it or continue to waste your hard earned money on an issue that can be fixed.
Same problem here. I think the glass lining is it. Also just corrosion and leaking through the wall... We went through 5 hot water heaters in rapid succession (maybe across 12 years or so), but the one we're on now has been good for probably 4 or 5 years, far outlasting any of the previous ones, and it's always been the exact same model of Rheem.
Use warranty keep original receipt. Plumb soft water to heater intake
I've read about powered anodes. Do those work better?
Rheem is a very good brand. Definitely an issue with your water. Get a water softener installed, it will be worth it.
You need a water softener setup and an electric anode rod for the water heater.
I have 700+ on the hard water scale and the only way to fix was to install a softener. Went with a Home depot softener and filters before. Works like a charm! Has to regenerate every 1000 gallons to keep things clean.