"larry moe 'n curly" wrote in message
oups.com...

TURTLE wrote:
"Paul" wrote in message
...

Electric water heater is an A.O. Smith 40 gallon "low-boy"
(short and fat) about 10 years old.
from what I see, no dielectric unions
I see a moderate amount of corrosion where the copper
fittings connect to the heater. No leaks.

Now I will say this. the tank you have now [ 10 years old ]
is probley in better condition than any new one you would
buy today. Why trade off a good piece of equipment to
install the newer piece of trash they have today.

What have they done to the newer heaters to make them worse? I just
replaced a leaky Rheem from the early 1990s with a State.


This is Turtle.

Around 1990 rheem started out with a new type glass liner in hot water tanks and
also in the tried it out on the 1980 to the 1988 model gas furnaces for high
salt water areas and the glass lining of the furnaces would rust out in less
than 10 years. So this glass lining did not work for furnaces , So They decided
to use it on the hot water tanks to keep them from rusting out. they call it now
the Guardian and use to be the Dyno-Glass Something. Now I don't know about the
others too much but i see a bunch of newer model hot water tank being changed
out but see a bunch of old tanks 20 to 40 years of age still running fine. My
fathers and my aunt's tank is a 1973 and a bunch of other people with old tanks
still running good. I also bought a rent house with a Rheem 1968 model hot water
tank in it and it still running fine. I bought my house about 25 years ago and
changed the tank out about 1990 and is now on my 3 th hot water tank since that
time , all Rheem. I , the only one out of the bunch was the dummy who changed
out my good running old Rheem Hot water tank for the sake of heading off trouble
with problem and leaks. Hindsight is alway better than farsight.

TURTLE