"davidlaska" wrote in message
Thank you very much for the perfect link, now I know what a worn out
anode looks like, the key to my problem. There was an old water
heater I pulled an anode from, the water heater was old, but never
used.

If you can pull out your anode you're lucky. For some reason, my water
heater was installed such that the incoming pipes block access to the anode.