Home & Garden

The Great Water Heater Rental Scam

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Aug 14, 2014
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Looking to stop renting and buy a unit, we will be renting the basement and looking at 6-7 using the tank. I was considering tankless but not sure where to buy from? (Costco etc?) and who to get it installed in GTA
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Apr 18, 2009
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Hello, I need some advice.
Bought a house. Rheem gas 50gallon hot water tank rental was installed 2 years ago. rental is $33 (taxes in) from enercare. The buy out is $1325 plus tax so $1500 taxes in. I am leaning towards buying it. Can a Rheem last at least 10-12 years even without maintenance?

thanks
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Dec 19, 2009
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rammar wrote: Hello, I need some advice.
Bought a house. Rheem gas 50gallon hot water tank rental was installed 2 years ago. rental is $33 (taxes in) from enercare. The buy out is $1325 plus tax so $1500 taxes in. I am leaning towards buying it. Can a Rheem last at least 10-12 years even without maintenance?

thanks
Any water heater can last between one and twenty years.
Maintenance has nothing to do with it.
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Apr 21, 2004
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TomLafinsky wrote: Yes the tank will last 10-12 years BUT you must inspect/change the anode every 3-4 years. I would say 3 to be on the safe side. Buying is the smart thing to do. Btw, a few weeks ago I bought a Rheem 50 US gal for $400 ;)

One more thing; drain a gallon of water every month!!!!!!!
Does this mean use hot water once a month?

Or some maintenance that regular hot water user still need to follow? TIA.
Last edited by alanbrenton on Nov 30th, 2018 3:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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TomLafinsky wrote: I would advise against tankless. In the end you won't be saving much if any at all. Need an electric panel with 200AMPS and still... You need to buy special product to do maintenance once a year. Unless you go NG tankless and that's a different story.
Thanks, Costco sells tankless gas (natural and propane) is that worth getting?

https://www.costco.ca/Eccotemp-EL22i-NG ... 57867.html
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TomLafinsky wrote: ??? Once a month you open the drain valve at the bottom of the tank and remove a gallon of water. If you don't use hot water more than once a month you might as well switch off the tank ;)
Damn. Didn't know that and our tank is almost 10 years old.

If I have a water softener, will I still need to do that? Sounds like the extra procedure is to make sure sediments don't collect at the bottom of the tank.

Edit:

Another task to do every month, haha:
https://structuretech1.com/water-heater-maintenance/
Last edited by alanbrenton on Nov 30th, 2018 3:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Oct 13, 2014
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@alanbrenton I am not sure if that anode rod is really the best thing to use. My only real experience with anodes comes from boating where the use of the anodes is to corrode before the metals on the boat corrode. This being boats made of aluminium and the drives which are also aluminium. Titanium, from what I can find is more corrosion resistant than stainless steel. If these rods are such that they corrode less then to me it would be the stainless steel tank that would corrode first, resulting in premature failure. FYI - Boating anodes are used as thus: aluminium for brackish water, magnesium for fresh water and zinc for salt water.
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TomLafinsky wrote: Any magnesium rods that can be screwed properly is fine. If too long just cut it so it fits.

IMO, changing the anode rod at this point is like closing the barn door after the chickens have escaped.
There is no indication of rust in the water though so might as well try.

Thanks again.
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TomLafinsky wrote: An easy way to find out how rusted is your tank is as follow. If you have a bathtub that you seldom use then don't use it for a month. And then close the drain and let the HOT water run for about 60 seconds. The water will be orange in color.

You should not see the rust in faucets that are used on an almost daily basis.

Could you come back to this thread and post a pic of the old anode rod after you have changed it? Thanks.
Actually I haven't tried draining the tank because it didn't make sense last night. I'll do the draining once I get the anode rod, the socket, and find my 1/2" drive and I will see what the condition of the water is at the bottom. I'll let you know the condition of the water when I catch them in a pail. That's probably more important to you than the condition of the rod.

Buying an anode rod for $15 is probably better since it's still sacrificial and it will still extend the tank life from my reading. It seems not every home owner knew to check and a lot of these tank warranty length seem to be related to the number of anode rods, with tanks having eight year warranty containing two rods.

I'm not going to be buying another tank and paying for installation until I have to. :)

Can you let me know how to upload an image here, step by step, without resorting to image respositories like imgur? Thanks in advance.
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TomLafinsky wrote: When you reply to a post right below the area where you can type your text you see 'OPTIONS' and next to it 'IMAGES' (at least that's they way it is in IE). Click on the box with the word 'Images' and then click on 'Add Files'. That's it!

From my own experience the average useful life of an anode rod when a water softener is present is 4 years. Don't expect plumbers to come to RFD and scream about the importance of doing the necessary maintenance as it is many times more profitable for them to install a new tank.

Is your tank electric or NG?
NG.
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Good thing I use Brita water to gargle lol. My wife is using tap. Going to let her know the quality of water in the tank this week and surprise her.

We use RO water when cooking.
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TomLafinsky wrote: I can't help you with your question. But from previous posts you indicated that your tank is 10 years old, the anode rod has never been changed, you have a water softener and you never drained your tank on a regular basis. Consider your tank is done.

The only thing I don't know is if your tank is electric or gas. If it is gas then your situation is even more precarious. In addition to the inside of your tank rusting a good deal due to lack of maintenance, you have a thick crust at the bottom of your tank that has been cooked by the flame under the tank. And also consider that for every 1/2" of crap at the bottom of your tank it takes 70% more fuel to get the water to the same temp.

In a natural gas water tank the crap that accumulated at the bottom creates hot spots which could lead to the bottom of the tank falling off in one piece if nothing else goes wrong before that.

So do yourself a favor and get a new tank before disaster strikes. My 2 cents.
This is a little dramatic. I am not a chemist, but from what I know, corrosion is related to conductivity of the water due to the various impurities contained in the water. Pure water is not conductive. Water softening involves replacing calcium ions with sodium ions. The conductivity of sodium ions is higher but not significantly (~25%). Everything else being equal, the difference in corrosion in the hot water tank would be higher with softened water. Now, there are other factors which affect corrosion. The calcium being non soluble will build up a sludge pile at the bottom of the water heater. This can accelerate corrosion in the form of pitting at the interface of the sludge pile. Sodium being soluble will not result in any build up at the bottom of the hot water heater. This pitting phenomenon will not be present for soft water. The preventive maintenance practice of draining some water from the tank periodically makes sense for untreated water as a way of preventing build up. For softened water where all the ions are soluble, it does not do much.

I used softened water. The previous hot water heater failed at age 14. The failure was at the thread where the anode is installed. I purchased the house when the water heater was 10 years old and so I don't know much about the history of anode replacement. I did notice a lot of rusting going on at thread when doing the home inspection. I did not see moisture and so I dismissed it as a potential issue. Four years later, a leak developed with water squirting out of the thread. My current water heater is 8 years old. The anode has never been replaced. It will never be replaced. I have not done any water draining preventive maintenance and I don't intend to start doing it. Around age 15, I intend to do a pre-emptive water heater replacement. In a finished basement, a run to failure strategy is not wise. In my previous house with unfinished basement, I had a heater go 24 years without failure. That house did not have a water softener. I did not own the property for the entire 24 years and so I don't have the full history. I did not do any preventive maintenance on the water heater during the time I owned the house.
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^ Thanks Will888.

Already bought the $15 magnesium anode and 1 1/6" socket. Might as well check it out. I'm not going to bother with the the pressure release as there has been no issues with overheating or overpressurizing over the last eight years.
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alanbrenton wrote: ^ Thanks Will888.

Already bought the $15 magnesium anode and 1 1/6" socket. Might as well check it out. I'm not going to bother with the the pressure release as there has been no issues with overheating or overpressurizing over the last eight years.
Buy two anodes. When you successfully complete the preventive maintenance on your water heater, I will invite you over to do mine. Winking Face
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LOL, I already have it. Amazon delivered at 11pm instead of 9 so I didn't work on the tank heater yet.

I am not worthy to enter your McMansion.
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torontolitigator wrote: Hi,

I'm a little but not really shocked at how many complaints there are about this stuff.
I'm a civil litigation lawyer in toronto representing a client in a dispute with crown crest regarding air and water filters and maintenance contracts. i'm about to commence litigation against them and MGA who originally did the sales and then sold to crown crest. I'm happy to talk to anyone and learn about their experiences with crown crest (not sure i can help you but happy to listen/read). please send me an e-mail at ari@arisingerlaw.com. My client's dispute also arises from crown crest referring the matter to a collections agency called Uplevel. I may be suing them too because of shenanigans and happy to listen to your experiences with them. Please put crown crest in subject line.

The terms in these contracts are very...umm... interesting. I feel for everyone unknowingly stuck with them.

Ari
I'm talking to Crown Crest right now. They quoted me a buyout price of $5200+ tax, on top of a "Discharge of Notice of Security Interest" of $275 whatever the heck that means. This is for a 2 year old tankless water heater
THE CHILDREN ARE FINE!!!

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