hot water htr recs

[patil devendra]

I have an 8 yr old AO Smith 40 gal gas hw htr. I originally had a 40 gal electric hw htr. This replacement was supposed to be cheaper than the electric unit and we were supposed to have more readily available hot water. It’s NEVER been that way. Now gas is more expensive and this unit is old and we seem to get less hot water. (already cranked upt thermostat). I’d like to replace it with a high efficiency gas unit. None of the tank types I’ve found have the efficiency of the electric units. However, the tank-types with electronic pilot seem to be just as efficient as the electrics. Questions:
1). Is there a very high efficiency gas tank-type available?
2). What are pros/cons of going to a whole-house gas tank-less unit versus gas tank-type?
3). I know this is the gas forum, but does anyone know anything about the Marathon electric wtr htr (by Rheem, I think ). http://www.marathonheaters.com/index.html If I go electric, that looks like the most efficient and longest lasting of what’s available.

TIA for your responses, a WONDERFUL site!

Paul

[Bendychicken1]

Sediment buildup will reduce the efficiency of a gas water heater much faster than an electric one.

Try this:
hook a garden hose up to the drain cock on the bottom of the heater. open up the drain cock and let it run for 5 minutes.Turn the heater all the way down to “vacation” mode on the thermistat(for saftey).shut the valve off that supplies the heater with water. open up all off the hot valves on all off your faucets and shower valves. let the heater drain for a while. unscrew the drain cock at the bottom of the tank.(BE CAREFULL! the heater may not actually be drained if the sediment has blocked up the tiny port in the drain cock. In this case, when you unscrew that drain cock water may come POURING out. Possibly scalding hot water. This is not an issue if your heater in the garage and you can just let the water run out into the driveway.) Take a screw driver and stick it in the hole that the drain cock was screwed into and try to break the the sediment free(may look like:blue jelly, carn flakes, lime rocks etc etc) thread a galvanized die electric nipple into the hole with teflon tape. thread a die electric union onto that nipple. thread a brass nipple onto that union. thread a brass “full port” ball valve onto the brass union. thread another brass nipple onto the other side of the ball valve.(if the heater is not on a stand) connect an apropriatly sized hose onto that nipple with a hose clamp or a transition fitting if you want to make this easyer in the future. If your heater is on a stand, just use a five gallon bucket. In either case. shut off the ballvalve. shut off all of the faucets and shower valves you turned on befor. turn the water supply valve back on to the water heater. open up the ball valve to drain the heater into the hose or bucket. this will remove much more sidiment than the factory drain cock did. there are 2 reasons. 1 is the new ballvalve has a big port for the chunks of nasty stuff to drain out off instead of that tiny 1/4″ port that was on the factory drain cock. the secong is the ball valve will support a higher flowrate which will create more turbulance in the tank to kick up an dremove sediments. You should drain your water heater once a year to keep up it’s efficiancy and extend it’s life. twice a year if you use a lot of hot water and/or have hard water.

While were on the note of water heater life span, here are some things that can be done in addition to this to increase it’s life span drasticly:

separate ALL brass fittings from heater(including but not limited to the t/p valve water inlet/outlet fittings and drain cock using dielctric nipples AND unions.

Replace the anode at minimum every 3 years(if you wait longer than that your going to have a heck of a time removing the old one.

Install an expantion tank AFTER the shutoff valve to the heater(between the heeter anf the valve)

I hope this helps
~Ken Da Plumba

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