On Fri, 17 Oct 2014 09:20:02 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Oct 2014 11:45:50 -0400, micky
wrote:

Is this perhaps a gas water heater? When I took my electric water
heater apart, it had a steel shell but inside that was a flexible
plastic of some sort, milky clear/white, with maybe glass embedded in
the plastic. It was 1/4" thick or more and was never going to break,
because I pulled it away from the metal and bend it 60 degrees and there
was no cracking.

It was sold by Sears but seemed identical to the one that was first in
the house, by A.O.Smith. (I'm not positive it's labeled glass-lined
but people make it sound like all of the tanks are.)

When I brought it home I worried about dropping it, because I had heard
they were lined with glass, so I thought they would be fragile, but like
I say, it would have been impossible to break the glass.

Mine is electric. See:
"What's inside a hot water heater?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaFt9rCzsyY

No time tonight to watch this. Tomorrow.

The video showing the inside of the tank start at about 4:30. As far
as I can see, it's just a steel tank with some manner of plating on
the inside. That's roughly what I found when I sawed apart my

BTW, I learned that you can saw though the outermost rather thin steel
layer of a water heater (the part that you see) with a reciprocating
saw, even if the blade no longer has any teeth. They all wore away but
it still cut fairly well. Certainly it wasn't worth changing the
blade.

original water heater, except that there was much more rust and lime
accumulation. Also, if there were a soft plastic inside liner, I

I woudn't call it soft. It bent, but it wasn't flimsy. Maybe the
stiffness was a little greater than a bicycle tire.

would expect it to melt from the heat of gas flame at the bottom.

My water heaters are electric too.

Here's collection of AO Smith residential gas water heater data
sheets:
http://www.ho****er.com/resources/product-literature/spec-sheets/residential-gas/

Tomorrow I'll look to see if they have electric.

I checked a few and most offer variations on the glass lining such as:
"BLUE DIAMOND ® GLASS COATING
An A. O. Smith exclusive provides superior corrosion
resistance compared to the industry-standard glasslining"