Most water heaters warn you well before they quit. Knowing roughly how long yours should last, and what cuts that short, tells you whether a new noise means a quick repair or the start of a replacement plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A standard storage tank usually lasts eight to twelve years. The steel inside is protected by a sacrificial anode rod; once that rod is used up, the tank itself starts to rust, and from then on it\u2019s only a matter of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With no stored water sitting against steel, tankless heaters often run well past fifteen years, and many reach twenty. What usually ends them is scale on the heat exchanger or a failed part that\u2019s no longer worth replacing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With hard well water, common outside the city, scale settles at the bottom of the tank and insulates the water from the burner or element. The heater works harder, gets noisier and wears out sooner. A yearly flush helps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cSwapping the anode rod around year five costs a fraction of a new heater, and it\u2019s the single best thing you can do for a tank.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
4. Signs yours is near the end<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Rusty water from the hot side, a damp spot or slow drip under the tank, rumbling that a flush no longer fixes, and hot water that runs out sooner every month all point the same way. A leak from the tank body itself can\u2019t be repaired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5. Repair or replace it?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
If the unit is under eight years old and the problem is a thermostat, element or valve, a repair is usually money well spent. Past ten years, or with any sign of rust on the tank, put the repair money toward a correctly sized replacement instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tank, tankless and hard water all change the answer. What to expect, and the signs yours is near the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-water-heating"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.iamavi.com\/portfolio\/stannick-plumbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.iamavi.com\/portfolio\/stannick-plumbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.iamavi.com\/portfolio\/stannick-plumbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.iamavi.com\/portfolio\/stannick-plumbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.iamavi.com\/portfolio\/stannick-plumbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.iamavi.com\/portfolio\/stannick-plumbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.iamavi.com\/portfolio\/stannick-plumbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.iamavi.com\/portfolio\/stannick-plumbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.iamavi.com\/portfolio\/stannick-plumbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.iamavi.com\/portfolio\/stannick-plumbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}