Common Water Heater Myths Answered | Ask This Old House

[Music] richard we asked folks for their water heater questions and oh boy did they have a lot of questions everybody's got a water well apparently everyone's got a question about them too i went through them and it looks like the most popular question had to do with when do i get rid of my water heater because they buy a new house or they look at the water here and they realize it's 5 10 15 years old and they're all terrible ones are going to leak right yeah so a couple of different types of common waters in america in the tank type variety one's electric has a cover plate here and here to cover over the electrical elements that stick into the water a gas water heater has a gas valve right here with a flue pipe right here on any of these tanks though there's a rating plate you go here and you can see what size the tank is what the model number is the data manufacturer you can see this was 2013. so then the question is when do you change it so these things are glass line steel tanks and they're going to fail usually 7 10 12 years right so you get to that 10 or 12 year period you got to say okay how much risk do i want and the other thing is many people contemplate going to a different type of method like a tankless or instantaneous water heater right in this case there is no big storage tank it sort of heats it up instantaneously so with with that if you're going to have a water heater that leaks and all of a sudden flood in your basement you're not going to slow down to take the time to change it to this thing because this the tankless needs bigger gas piping and it's a lot more work you're just going to change that water so you'll be locked into the same cycle so a part of it is sort of you know how risk-averse you are and where is it right because in my house it's a concrete floor it's unfinished basement i don't want the leak but that'll be okay someone has it upstairs on the first floor it can cause total catastrophe in the house okay let's talk about um extending the life because people are probably not going to want to pay to change if they don't have to but would like to keep it going well this glass line steel tank you used to have a glass lining here that was perfect and it used to have a rod right here called an anode rod this is a sacrificial rod made out of magnesium or aluminum and it might have looked like this at one time and that sits down inside right here and it becomes the sacrificial piece that the aggressive water wants to eat so it will eat this glass yeah so this thing can be replaced so they're made so that it can be bent and put in now if somebody was to come along and replace this anode every two to three years you could make a glassline steel tank lasts for picket 20 or 30 years wow okay right but nobody does it okay okay and what happens also is you might want to change the anode rod but if you don't change in the first two or three years of its operating life this might fuse in here where you can't even get it out of the top of the tank okay but this is something interesting you could make a tank last a long time i think there's a i don't know if it's a rumor or a myth you tell us this idea that if i periodically drain the hot water heater that will extend its life too is that true well a water heater is a perfect collector of calcium and magnesium and so it can sit right down in the bottom right here so a couple of tips every water heater has a drain at the bottom so if you were going to drain it down what i would do is i would turn the water off open up the drain now if you do that what i would do is also turn this on just a couple of times so think about what you're doing you're going to sort of push and sort of spray it down through this dip tube to sort of wash some of that stuff down the drain if you didn't do it that way and you left this on you would actually just take water right out of the bottom of this dip tube and it'll go right to the drain it would leave all the the build up in the bottom of the tank gotcha okay if i come home and i find that i've got a leak coming out of my hot water tank i'm worried that it's going to blow and get worse first thing i should do well this is the biggest panic in most people's lives you know when these waters goes they they do not go like an egg shell being smashed on the ground it's usually a pinhole leak so the control is important there's a shut off valve there's a cold water line and a hot water line you got to get and turn the turn the water heater off the cold water side but and now over time the pressure will relieve through the pinhole leak yeah but you still have water in the tank and you have water up inside the house right so put a hose on the draw off right here and open it up and just relieve the pressure and that'll just give you time to exhale until you can call somebody to replace the water perfect all right good information and one thing um if we want to worry about why people are so concerned about the water heaters can you stop scaring them this thing's terrifying no this is what it looks like inside sorry thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every home improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you like what you see click on the subscribe button to make sure that you get our newest videos right in your feed

Channel: This Old House

Views: 1,125,040

Keywords: richard trethewey, kevin o'connor, plumbing, water heater, maintenance, 4-6 minutes, This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, Kevin o’connor, kevin o'connor house, kevin o'connor this old house, kevin o'connor ask this old house, kevin o'connor interview, home renovation ideas on a budget

Id: 9kjabzIcLRA

Length: 5min 0sec (300 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 09 2019