"Roger Shoaf" wrote in message
...

"Marilyn & Bob" wrote in message
news:AJcDd.19600$113.9510@trndny03...

In general, gas water heaters do not fade away.

I disagree. Usually tank corrosion kills them

Reread the OP's message. What he meant by fade away is that it stops
heating water as well as it get older. This is only very marginally true.
The gradual corrosion you talk about does not show up until there is a leak
which is equivilant to water heater death.



While they do accumulate
gunk on the bottom which makes it use a little more energy to heat the
water, you usually can keep your heater until it starts to leak (and just
hope that it starts as a little leak and not a catastrophic one.


Or you can be a little pro-active. If simple maintainance is done once in
a
while, you can get 25 years out of the 5 year warrantee heater.

True, but it won't help after 15 years of non-maintenance.


However,
as Joseph Meehan points out, in the late 80's, early 90's there was a
problem with the longevity of the plastic dip tube used in water heaters.
This is the tube that bring the incoming cold water directly to the
bottom
of the heater. If the tube is broken, the replacement cold water comes
in
near the top of the heater and mixes with the exiting hot water, causing
your problem. There is no reasonable way to replace the dip tube on a 15
year old heater, so it is probably time for a new one.


No way to replace a dip tube? They just slip in under the cold inlet.



After 15 years, it makes no sense to replace the dip tube, even if it were
possible. The amount of corrosion at the connection to the cold inlet,
would make it very difficult to remove it non-destructively to put in a new
dip tube.
--
Peace,
BobJ




Read about water heaters he

http://waterheaterrescue.com/

This site will explain all about sediment, dip tubes, anodes, etc.

I am not affiliated with these folks in any way, but there information is
top notch.

--

Roger Shoaf

About the time I had mastered getting the toothpaste back in the tube,
then
they come up with this striped stuff.